MARGAO
The murder of Swapnil Walke in cold blood and increasing crimes seemed to have finally woken up the powers that be and the authorities on the urgent need to bring the commercial capital under the scanner of the Big Brother.
While the good news is that the gruesome murder has prompted the authorities to go for latest cameras, including wireless CCTV cameras, the bad news is that the old CCTV cameras installed in the city under the MPLAD scheme of Francisco Sardinha six years ago at a cost of around Rs 70 lakh may be scrapped for want of maintenance for the last five years.
A day after the Goan highlighted how the police had literally hopped from one shop to another on the day of the murder just to get hold the CCTV footage of business establishments, Margao Municipal officials and Margao Traffic officials met in the Civic body to discuss ways and means of bringing the entire city under the CCTV cameras.
While district police chief, SP Pankaj Kumar Singh, was also in touch with Margao Municipal Chief Officer Ajit Panchwadkar, Margao MLA Digambar Kamat also spoke to the MMC CO as well as the traffic police on how to go about getting the city under the CCTV scanner.
After the meeting, the MMC Chief Officer told The Goan that it has been decided to go in for the latest cameras phase-wise to ensure that the most strategic and vulnerable areas will be first covered under the CCTV cameras.
He pointed out that traffic police Officer, Suraj Samant, has been asked to prioritize the locations before going for the next step of tendering the project or approaching authorities for the funding.
It has been further decided to explore the possibility of going in for wireless cameras with the CSR from the cellular companies, which have erected towers across the city.
“We will take a call on how to go about the funding once the police give the list of locations on priority. It has been decided to go in for the project in three-phases, given the huge cost," Panchwadkar added.
As reported by The Goan, the CCTV cameras installed around six years ago all lie defunct for want of maintenance by the authorities. Even the proposal mooted by then Rajya Sabha MP, late Shantaram Naik, to install CCTV cameras in Fatorda at a cost of Rs 3.40 crore is yet to see the light of day.
