In January last year, the government installed 22 CCTV cameras at important junctions in Ponda taluka to curb crimes and traffic violations. Come September 2017, all the CCTVs are reportedly defunct due to non-maintenance making the anti-social elements rejoice and the authorities fuming. The Ponda police are the worst affected as their task has increased both at the desk and in the traffic.
Now with rise in robberies, fights among students, traffic violations, the citizens are demanding better quality CCTVs with accurate cameras to keep a vigil on the town.
Fonndekars were hoping that the CCTV monitoring which began in January 2016, would help their safe movement on the roads, provide safety for pedestrians and control the anti-social and traffic violating offenders and maintain a vigil on students’ activities.
Rightly the system worked for few months as per their expectations and there was safety and discipline on the road with driving, parking of vehicles at roadside, etc, as many offenders were aware they were under CCTV scanner and would be punished if they would violate laws with a proof based on the CCTV footage. However, since everyone now knows that the CCTVs are non functional for the past one year, indiscipline, traffic violations, driving and overtaking on the wrong side has increased in Ponda town.
It is learnt from Ponda Municipal Council (PMC) sources that the contract of installation and maintenance work has been given to the same agency which has totally neglected to these cameras in the past. The responsibility also lies with the police and the PMC authorities.
With rise in chain snatching, robberies, fights among students outside school premises altercations at bus stop, Fonndekars badly feel the need of high quality CCTV cameras in and out of the town, especially the National Highway and the bypass roads.
They say that CCTVs are urgently needed near banks, jewellery shops, roads leading towards schools since customers have fallen prey to robbers outside banks, women losing their chains, hit and run incidents in the recent past. All these have taken place in the absence of CCTVs.
According to PMC Chief Officer Navnath Naik 22 CCTV cameras were installed under the MPLAD scheme. However, these cameras have been defunct for the past few months. He has sent several complaints to the Agency for maintenance according to the contract.
The Chief Officer further said he had sent several letters to the company to undertake repair work, but he failed to evoke any response from the company for the maintenance of the CCTV cameras.
A Ponda Police personnel, on condition of anonymity, said the monitoring system of the cameras is installed and functioning inside from Ponda Police Station. However, now we are not getting any feeds from these cameras. Sources said 90 per cent of these cameras are not functioning and police officials have brought it to the notice of PMC.
“We are not benefiting in crime detection because of improper installation and cameras’ eyes are facing in wrong direction as most of time the number of moving vehicles are not visible on the CCTV and it becomes difficult to trace the vehicle because of poor visibility,” he said.
However, the CCTV cameras are a must for us to detect crimes provided they are high quality cameras and properly installed at sensitive junctions, he added.
Traffic Police also raised serious concerns over the defunct CCTV cameras, which are of no use today as the repair works were not taken up on time. It is learnt that traffic police used to keep a constant check and even book several offenders. More than issuing challans the CCTVs used to help in a smooth flow of traffic.
According to now in “Nowadays in the town of Ponda one can witness wrong parking, driving and overtaking on the wrong side, and haphazard parking after the CCTV cameras stopped functioning. People are now demanding urgent restoration of the CCTVs,” says Shreedar Naik, a town resident.
Eusebio D’Souza says if only two cameras are functioning out of total 22 it is of no use. “Not only traffic but police should benefit from CCTVs as crimes are increasing in town. For the safety of its citizens PMC must undertake repairs and maintenance work of CCTV cameras,” says Eusebio.
Viraj Sapre said the cameras installed in town areas have not helped Police in detecting crimes except the traffic police who issued challans to offenders based on CCTV footage. “These cameras should be installed at junctions like Farmagudi, Hotel Amigos, Bethora, Borim, Davlim Farmagudi, RTO junction and Kashimath Junction and also especially in and out of the school premises,” said Sapre.
CCTVs around the schools will help police in detecting crime and also keep a watch on anti-social elements and students involved in unwanted quarrels etc. It will also help police detect criminals who may trespass into school premises or prevent drug peddlers selling narcotics to students, he added.
