THE GOAN NETWORK
MARGAO: Where’s there a will, there’s away,so goes the saying. After utter neglect and apathy to put to use the CCTVsurveillance cameras installed across Margao over a half-a-decade ago, theauthorities have got the cameras removed for repairs and maintenance.
In fact, after a high-level meetingcalled by the district Collector, South Ajit Roy earlier this week at theinstance of Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat, the original contractor hasremoved the CCTV cameras for repairs before they are made functional in thefirst week of October.
The suddenly flurry of activity from theadministration to repair the CCTV cameras, post-Swapnil Walke murder casesounds baffling, more so when the surveillance cameras were awaiting repairsand maintenance all these years under their very nose.
That the district administration managedto bring the original contractor to obtain the factual condition of the CCTVcameras only goes to show that the same administration could have taken theinitiative long ago and not have waited for a murder to wake them from theirslumber.
The Goan had exposed the defunct CCTVsurveillance cameras in Margao when young city jeweler Swapnil Walke was shotand stabbed to death by armed assailants in broad daylight. The CCTV camerashad come under focus after Swapnil’s cold blooded murder after The Goan saw howthe men-in-uniform had hopped from one shop to the other just to lay theirhands on the CCTV footage from business establishments with all the cameraslying defunct for want of maintenance and repairs.
Around 37 CCTV cameras were installedacross the city in 2014 from the MPLAD scheme of South Goa
MP Francisco Sardinha. The cameras,however, turned defunct for want of maintenance and repairs with neither thelocal municipal body nor the police department volunteering to maintain thecameras.
