I see you: Varanasi criminals can’t dodge this tech

The project of advanced surveillance system with an investment of Rs 125 crore was started in the city in July.

Varanasi:  Movement by criminals is set to become riskier with a new network of CCTV cameras being installed in Varanasi, including the automated facial recognition cameras (AFRS). It will all be connected to a central data system that will not let the bad guys escape unidentified.

The project of advanced surveillance system with an investment of Rs 125 crore was started in the city in July.

Under this project, 500km optical fibre was being laid to provide connectivity at 700 points of the city and all police stations are also being connected to the network.

“The network will have 3,000 close circuit television cameras in 14 categories, including AFRS at 22 vital points,” said the chief executive officer of Smart City project and municipal commissioner, Gaurang Rathi.

The project is expected to get completed by April 2021 end.

This project is being executed by an Austrian company through its Indian subsidiary.

Rathi said that the advanced technologies in use in Europe and the US have been incorporated in this project of advanced surveillance system.

“We are also connecting all police stations through the network of optical fibre of this network. The AFRS will be operated as per the norms fixed by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) under Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS),” he said.

AFRS will help identify people by matching digital images, photos and video feed with an already existing database.

The system will be connected with police stations through the CCTNS, the countrywide database of suspects and people wanted for investigations will be accessible to identify or verify a person from various kinds of photo inputs from a digital image file to a video source.

The system will offer logical algorithms and simple graphical user interface for facial matching.

The AFRS, to be installed at city crossings, will be a web-based application hosted at the NCRB data centre in Delhi. The two command centres will run on the campus at Shahid Park.

Currently, the entire traffic-related exercises are being monitored through integrated command centre of Smart City for which adequate number of policemen have been deployed there.

SSP Amit Pathak said that with the arrival of advanced surveillance system, which will improve the process of tracing or locating suspected persons or criminals for police, the required man power will be allocated from department at the new command centre to run it efficiently after getting proper training in this regard.