Cuttack: When the unsavoury incident involving an Army officer and his female friend with that of the police took place at Bharatpur police station of Bhubaneswar in the wee hours of September 15, the arguments and counter-arguments that followed soon; were fuelled further for there were no CCTV facilities installed at the police station.
For the lack of the surveillance mechanism, it was not immediately ascertained as to who was right and who was wrong. By that date, Bharatpur police station was not alone in violating the Supreme Court guidelines for not installing the CCTV cameras.
But at least 52 other newly constructed police stations, out of a total of 645 police stations in the state, had no CCTV facilities in place. Similarly, none of the 295 police outposts of the state too had video surveillance facility, which was essential to deter crime and criminal activities inside the police stations and outposts.
In his affidavit submitted to the Orissa High Court on Tuesday, senior IPS officer Dayal Gangwar informed the Court that a proposal has been submitted to the Odisha government to install CCTV facilities in all the police outposts of the state after clear instructions from the High Court.
However, steps are now being taken to install CCTV surveillance facilities in all the 52 newly constructed police stations, including at the Bharatpur police station.
Gangwar, an ADG-rank officer further informed the Court that out of the 11,729 cameras installed in 593 police stations of the state since March 2022, at least 2,266 cameras spread across 456 police stations were non-functional due to various reasons as on September 24, 2024.
He further informed that since the integrated project involved a lot of IT interventions, the state government had decided that the Odisha Computer Academic Centre under the E & IT department of the government will execute the work.
Since the project involved three-tier supervision, maintenance and supervision, it needed installation of Video Management Software (VMS) at the district level under the control of district Superintendents of Police (SPs) and Central Monitoring System (CMS) at the state-level under the State Director General of Police (DGP) for seamless monitoring of CCTV surveillance system.
"But due to non-implementation of VMS and CMS systems for the lack of requisite internet connectivity, the monitoring and maintenance of the facility was done telephonically in an archaic manner," Gangwar said in his affidavit.
He, however, informed the High Court that the state government has now decided to work on the modalities of the completion of the VMS and CMS system using the existing internet facility. He said by November 15, the restoration work of non-functional cameras would be over and the installation of CCTV cameras in the 52 newly constructed police stations will be completed.
While the VMS and CMS systems have been integrated in six districts, the affidavit said that the system will be integrated in other districts by November 15. He further informed that the OCAC has initiated steps for the installation of CCTV facilities in all the police outposts by March 31 next year.
