Delhi now has most no. of CCTVs per sq mile across globe, says CM
New Delhi: The Capital has now ranked highest across the world in CCTVs per square mile — an initiative taken up by the AAP-led Delhi government as one of the ways to make the city's public spaces safer for women.
While making the announcement Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that Delhi has now surpassed cities like London, Shanghai, New York and Singapore to rank number one across the globe in terms of CCTVs installed per square mile. In an analysis of 150 cities across the world, the Capital topped with 1,826 CCTVs per square mile, making it one of the most closely surveilled cities in the world.
"At first, Delhi has 1,826 cameras, while at second, London has 1,138 cameras per square mile. My compliments to the Delhi Government's officers and engineers who worked on the project like a mission and achieved the feat in such a short time," he wrote on Twitter.
London is followed by Chennai at 609 and Shenzhen (China) at 520, in the list of top 10 cities in the metric, according to a statement issued by the state government.
The chief minister added that 2.75 lakh cameras have been installed in the first phase and the work is underway for installing 1.4 lakh cameras in public spaces.
RWAs have been involved in surveying the locations where the CCTVs should be put up, not just gated colonies but all localities in the city, including slums which were covered in the project.
Under the entire scheme, each RWA/ Market Association has 30 to 40 cameras to cover their respective areas. Before CCTV deployment, General Body Meetings with representatives of PWD, Police, RWA/Market Association were conducted to decide the location of the CCTVs, with a form being submitted detailing the same.
All CCTV feeds are highly secure, with hardware monitored by the community, feeds accessible only to authorised users, and the system itself capable of automatic health checkups to detect disturbances and intrusions of the connections.
Authorised users include the PWD Command Centre and RWA Monitoring Rooms and the Police.
CM Kejriwal also said that his government has been completely devoted to its vision of good governance and people-oriented groundwork. The State government in a statement said that no other Indian city is close to Delhi, which has three times the number of CCTVs than Chennai and 11 times that of Mumbai per square mile.
The CM further said that his government achieved this despite hurdles from the L-G's office and the Central government but that did not deter it from pursuing this project to enhance women's safety in the city. The AAP also even sat on a dharna at the L-G House in order to pave the way for the CCTV project.
Significantly, the latest data from the National Crime Records Bureau has shown that Delhi has the highest number of crimes against women among 19 metropolitan cities in the country.
In addition, this year's public crime data from the Delhi Police has revealed that crimes against women here had risen by over 60 per cent in the first six months of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020.
