Delay in CCTV cameras installation: Delhi govt warns of blacklisting BEL

New Delhi: Delhi government on Friday proposed to impose a penalty of Rs 16 crore on the Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) for its slow pace of installing 1,40,000 CCTV cameras across Delhi. "BEL is under legal obligation to complete the installation of CCTV cameras within nine months according to its agreement with the Delhi government, and in case it fails to complete the entire installation work within these nine months, it is liable to pay a 10 percent penalty," the AAP government said in a statement.

"Penalty clause is part of the agreement between the Delhi government and BEL, which was awarded the contract in November last year and after completion of all formalities, the BEL was to begin the installation of CCTVs in February this year and the entire installation work is to be completed by November 22," it added.

As a first step, since more than two-thirds of the time given to the BEL is already over, the Delhi government has proposed to impose a five percent penalty (Rs 16 crore) of the overall CCTVs installation project cost (Rs 320 crore) to begin with.

"The Chief Minister is committed to complete the installation of CCTV cameras in Delhi on time and he has made it clear that no delay will be tolerated and in case of any default, the company will be blacklisted and complete 10% penalty will be imposed," the statement reads.

It may be mentioned that the Public Work Department (PWD) of Delhi government has already issued a show cause notice to the BEL over the slow installation of CCTV cameras all over Delhi.

Meanwhile, the statement asserted that the BEL is 'legally obliged' to install 1.40 lakh CCTV cameras by November 22 all over Delhi. However, out of the total 1.4 lakh cameras it has installed only around 16,000 till date. PWD minister Satyendar Jain and the Chief Secretary Vijay Kumar Dev had recently summoned the Chairman & Managing Director of BEL to convey the government's dissatisfaction over the unjustified delay in cameras installation work.

Currently around 400 CCTVs are being installed everyday and in the meeting the BEL CMD had informed that all efforts would be made to improve this number to 1,500 CCTVs installation daily. The PWD has now sought a schedule from the BEL on the future course of action of BEL on completion of the process of installation of CCTV cameras. It has also clearly conveyed to BEL that looking at the progress till now, the company needs to pull up its socks and expedite the ongoing work in a big way.