Lakhs of rupees have gone into the Closed Circuit Televisions (CCTVs) project under the MPLAD scheme aimed at bringing criminals as well traffic violators under the scanner in the towns. Sadly, the “Big Brother” is still awaiting a big helping hand from the “men-in-uniform” to achieve the avowed objective as manpower constraints have left the project underutilised.
On the first floor of the district police headquarters at Margao is a small cramped room, housing over half-a-dozen monitors connected to the CCTVs installed in the commercial capital, the Port Town of Vasco, besides Quepem and Sanguem municipal areas in the district hinterland.
A police sub-inspector, two havaldars and as many police constables, besides a lady constable constantly man the monitors to keep a track on the traffic violators and initiate the process of issuing challans. Sources in the know, however, say that inadequate manpower has thrown the project haywire, defeating its very purpose. Says a traffic police officer: “The centre is in need of minimum five additional staff to successfully run the system. The existing staff is hard put to man the traffic in Margao, Vasco, Sanguem and Quepem. The authorities should also sanction ACs to improve the life of the equipments housed in the small room”.
Presently, the centre issues around 100 challans on an average daily for want of manpower, with a senior officer claiming that correspondence made to the higher police authorities for additional manpower has not spurred positive response till date.
What’s interesting to note is that the CCTV monitors remain unmanned at nights, again for want of manpower. “The police stations call for CCTV footage only when burglars strike the towns in a big way or in connection with other crime-related incidents. There’s still no mechanism in place so far to man the monitors during nights to keep the burglars at bay and curb thefts and burglaries”, informed a police officer.
Incidentally, when the CCTV proposal was first mooted by the former district Collector, N D Agrawal, it was announced that the CCTVs will help track down the movement of criminals at nights and curb crimes. A year down the lane since outgoing South Goa MP Francisco Sardinha funded the CCTV project from the MPLAD scheme, the project has only helped to track down traffic violators to some extent, leaving the project underutilised for reasons best known to the government.
