SURAJ NANDREKAR
The Mission Smart City for Panjim is all set to float its first tender for an integrated command and control system which will keep the city under watch 24×7. Unlike the present Close Circuit Television Cameras (CCTVs), which have stopped functioning within a year of installation, the Smart City project will also see the installing company maintains it for next seven years.
“Let me tell you it is not just the cameras. It is a system which controls the safety and security of our citizens and provide lot of other facilities like Solid Waste Management, policing – who are setting up 112 emergency no, Fire force, disaster management cell etc,” said Siddarth Kunkolienkar, vice-chairman GSIDC.
Siddarth said the system, called the Integrated Command and Control Centre, is sort of one-stop solution for all the systems like pollution levels, fire safety, etc.
“The ICCC will provide free wi-fi to the entire city and some areas. It will be the people of Panjim but of course the visitors will also be benefited,” he stated.
Giving further details, the former MLA said, the ICCC will have a public broadcast system which can tell the citizens to avoid any area or send notices of traffic or any other issue like smart parking, slots available, etc.
“We are planning for 450 cameras at strategic points in the City, which will be monitored via a huge screen in the smart city complex, the command and control centre at Patto, which will also include a call centre,” he stated.
Smart City MD Swayandipta Pal Chowdhary, Smart City MD, explained that the ICCC system will monitor the traffic, sent notifications and detect traffic violations.
“The ICCC will detect the number plate and send automatic intimation to the police department for generating challans,” he explained adding “the system will also have software which will detect abnormal and suspicious moments through the criminal facial recognition system.
“For example if a known criminal is moving around city and passing around, the camera will immediately start the alert which will be generated to the police. It is called FRS – the Facial Recognition system, it has analytical software around it which will recognise the pattern and the behaviour of your face and if matches the profile of certain percentage based on word flow and standard operating procedure the message will go to the respective police officer,” Chowdhary said.
He disclosed that It will not only go there; if the police who has got the alert doesn’t take action it will go to next higher officer after certain time, if even he does not recognise it will go to his higher officer and will keep on escalating.
“All these things will be incorporated in the system. So it is not just a camera, which is a misconstrued thing, cameras are much cheaper. It is what we want and what city wants hence we have gone for a good elaborate system.”
Kunkolienkar points out that the there are CCTV cameras installed in virtually every city of Goa but as on date none are working.
“Panjim also had cameras which were hardly one and half year back but what happened? So we are working on a system which operates for 7 years and it will be binding on him (contractor) through the financial implications,” he said.
Explaining further, he says, this means the contractor will be paid only 40 per cent on completion of work and rest 60% will follow in equal quarterly installments for the next seven years.
Industry consultation to be held, as reported by Herald earlier
Chowdhary says that the Smart City Mission will go through lot of procedures for the project.
“For the first time in the country an industry consultation will be used wherein we have involved all the business chambers GCCI, CII, Assocham, NASCOM, etc. We sent out invites to prospective bidders; 15 companies came here for an industry consultation, we had extensive three hours meeting with them explaining what we want from them,” he said.
Kunkolienkar stated that the government has also formed a committee to check what we are doing is correct or not.
“This is a technical committee – consisting of MD GEL, HoD Electronics and Electrical (GEC), Specialised Professor with doctorate from Engineering college and a GIM Professor. This committee will judge the technical as well as financial parameters,” he added.
Asked about the cost of the ICCC project, Siddarth replied, “the entire project should be costing around Rs 150 cr.”
But, he added, the critics should wait for the project papers to be out and tenders be floated before giving expert comments.
Multi-department involvement
Speaking about the critics, Kunkolienkar said they have to realise the vision behind the project.
“It is not like the pay parking contract or the sopo contract where CCP has earned nothing. The intention behind project is the upliftment of the quality of the lives of the people,” he stated.
He said the Director General of Police holds a doctorate in this field of cybernetics, he is giving tremendous inputs on this project and appointed two officers only to interact on ICCC tender. Besides, the Fire Force Director Ashok Menon and Collector Nila Mohanan have reportedly shown tremendous interest.
“It is a multi-scaler inter-department dependency, it is not just the CCP it is not just smart city or the police there is inter department co-ordination that will be required,” says Chowdhary adding “Goa has never seen such magnanimous approach before”.
“We are working with TCP on land mapping, we have worked with WRD and mapped storm water drains. CCP had the plans of storm water drains but no one knows where they are,” he says.
