Rs5.5b deal inked for Smart Safe City project in red zone

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah approved the signing of an agreement of Rs5.5 billion between the Sindh Police Department and National Radio and Telecommunication Corporation (NRTC) to launch the first phase of the Smart Safe City project in the red zone.

The red-zone comprises CM House, Governor House and the surrounding areas in Saddar.

The approval of the agreement was made in a meeting held at CM House and was attended by Home Minister Zia Lanjar, Mayor Karachi Murtaza Wahab, Chief Secretary Asif Hyder Shah, IG Police Riffat Mukhtar, NRTC MD Brigadier Asim Ishaque Sindh Safe Cities Authority , DG Asif Aijaz Shaikh and others.

The CM was told that the Smart Safe City project 1,300 CCTV cameras would be installed at 300 sites in red zone and airport corridor with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) capability within eight hours solar-powered battery backup. To a question, CM was told that the 193km of optic fibre cable network would connect 18 police stations. The cameras would relate to the Command and Control Centre of Central Police Office and then a permanent C&CC would be developed at Karachi Police Office.

The smart safe city project would have the capability of facial recognition and a number plate recognition system. Under the system monitoring of hospitals for criminals/suspects, multiple camera tracking against suspects and response, database management of criminals and integration with National, Criminal, and other databases.

The chief minister said that the project was much awaited and finally it was seeing the day of light and hoped that the project would achieve its purpose. "I want NRTC to complete the first phase in 18 instead of 24 months," he said.

The CM said that Karachi has a population of more than 20.38 million people which would increase further by 2030. Therefore, to control crime and critical incidents, public unrest, disaster management and traffic safety were his top priorities and their solution lay in technological integration.

The conceptual framework of the smart safe city Karachi includes swift delivery of emergency response and services, digital forensics and analysis of incidents, situational awareness through one window operation, real-time monitoring of activities, systematised traffic and crowd examining and monitoring, timely action against the untoward incident and intelligent data co-relations from a database.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 21^st, 2024.