Team Herald
MARGAO: Over half the number of closed circuit television system (CCTV) at the Collectorate in Margao is non-functional which has now made the highly important voting machines vulnerable to several threats. Over 1300 new sealed voting machines reached the Collectorate in trucks on Sunday and were offloaded and stored.
These machines will be stored in Margao chief electoral office till the Election Day. These are stored in a strong room at the Collectorate and will be guarded by police 24×7.
But sources say the main surveillance, the CCTV, which is aimed at roughing out any human error has been non-functional in this room too. Sources from the Collectorate informed that half the number of CCTV’s has gone off and all of them have no audio feed. The source also revealed that the condition has been the same for quite some time. It was also learnt that there is no feed from the room where the voting machines have been stored.
The Collectorate at Margao has at least 48 cameras fitted all over the building since its inception. However, it has been learnt from a CCTV camera installation contractor that the government buildings have only promoted fitting of cameras but have always been one step behind when it comes to maintenance.
Attempts to reach the collector and the additional collector, through phones, for their comments on the issue proved futile.
