Delhi Police's Safe City Project

For more than six months, Delhi Police has been working on the Safe City Project with a simple motive—effective policing. But the system itself is complex, built on four components. The two most important parts are its Integrated Intelligent Surveillance Systems (IISS) and the Automated Traffic Management Systems (ATMS), followed by capacity building and initiatives for upgrading. The IISS at the ground level will mean that all officers on the road will use hand-held personal digital assistant (PDA) devices that are no less than a computer. The PDAs will have online access, enabling an officer to check whether the car he has hailed for inspection is stolen or the driver has a crime record. These single checks will help police secure the city.
The project will multiply police’s surveillance capabilities with CCTV cameras. At present, Delhi has CCTVs installed in 26 markets and at five border points. Installation work in 28 other markets and 10 border points is 65% done. CCTV installation at the Supreme Court, high court and district court complexes is also over. All these steps will bring the total number of surveillance cameras up to 5,333.
Once the Safe City Project gets rolling, another 6,625 cameras will be installed at 479 locations while the traffic police are expected to install 5,000 cameras at important intersections, taking the total to 16,928.
Delhi Police’s cyber cell led by joint CP Sandeep Goel, the special cell led by joint CP MM Oberoi and the traffic police led by additional CP Anil Shukla will oversee implementation of the project in the next two years.
The ATMS will be a unified solution for traffic problems. It will be able to track e-challans, check speeding at night with night-vision speed detectors. It will also analyze the peak loads and junction management.
Other initiatives under the project include a PCR upgrade, cyber security, training of field officers, data integration with private entities like hotels at the local level and disaster fighting authorities like fire brigade and National Disaster Management Authority. Besides the police’s C4i control room, there will be two data centres, two mobile command centres, 800 mobile terminals for PCR vans and 6,000 handheld devices.
Experts, however, say the project alone cannot make Delhi safer. “It is important that Delhi Police customize the software. For example, fog and monkeys—common Delhi problems—can play havoc with video analytics,’’ said Dipankar Ghosh, director of a firm that deals in such security solutions.