MARGAO
Will the Margao Municipal Council first put its house in order before proposing a plan to bring the entire city under CCTV surveillance cameras?
This question has come to haunt the civic body as the MMC along with agencies such as the police has set in motion a proposal to go for CCTV surveillance cameras across the commercial capital.
It’s now close to a decade since the MMC had embarked on an ambitious programme to bring the entire civic building, including the various municipal sections, under the surveillance cameras. Lakhs of rupees had been spent on the cameras and to put the monitoring system in place.
Sadly, blame it on the political will or simply indifference, the MMC had never put the cameras to use to bring the employees under the CCTV scanner or the citizens visiting the municipal building.
Sources in the know informed that the CCTV cameras were put into operation for some time, but they were never monitored though the monitoring system was set up in the chamber of the Chief Officer, before they were abandoned for reasons best known to the civic babus.
The last time the CCTV cameras were put to use was during the brief stint of then Chief Officer L Navin, IAS. He had during his tenure had even demanded that the chamber of the Chairperson should be brought under the CCTV scanner, bringing him face to face with the politically-powerful councillors.
It’s now five years since the present council has been ruling the MMC, but neither the city fathers nor the babus had deemed proper to activate the CCTV cameras and ensure transparency in the functioning of the body.
When The Goan called up MMC CO Ajit Panchwadkar to find out whether he has any plan to activate the CCTV cameras installed in the various sections of the building, he replied with a firm yes. “I do not know whether cameras installed in the sections are in working condition or not, but we will go in for new cameras after inviting quotation from the prospective suppliers,” Panchwadkar said.
