A stye in Chennai’s third eye – Times of India

On paper, numerically, Chennai scores over such fancy world capitals like London and Beijing when it comes to CCTV density. Chennai today boasts of 2.8 lakh CCTV cameras, and even nook and corners of the city have been brought under its famed ‘Third Eye’.

In reality, however, several hundred cameras installed at vital locations are on a blink for want of maintenance or replacement due to dust or bad weather.
It came as a rude shock when, recently, a police team tried to track a house burglary suspect using the CCTV grid along the possible routes. Police did manage to track the burglar down at Puducherry, but at least 30% to 40% of CCTV cameras from the victim’s house in Kotturpuram till the end were found to be dysfunctional. Cops accomplished the mission by field visits and collecting CCTV footage from residences and commercial establishments along the route.
One can hardly understate the stellar role CCTV cameras have been playing in solving chain or mobile snatching incidents, road accidents, burglaries and other grievous offences. If properly preserved these digital evidence can improve conviction rates in criminal cases, in future.
But, as of now, a lot many cameras are either covered with dust or disconnected due to bad weather and other reasons. In some areas, the camera hood was seen acting as a shelter for small birds. A largescale overhaul of the whole CCTV network is long overdue.
As such, only 5,000-plus CCTVs in the city were originally installed by police. While about 1 lakh cameras were installed using the constituency development funds of MPs and MLAs, the remaining were either installed by commercial establishments or private individuals. Also, it is nearly three years since most of these cameras had been installed, and it is time for their overhaul and renewal of maintenance contracts.
Chennai city commissioner of police Sankar Jiwal said police had a bundle of priority activities, including to build an infra development for the city police. “The proposal to have CCTV cameras, automated number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, women safety gadgets exclusively to safeguard women and many more aspects are on the pipeline,” said Jiwal. “We are including the annual maintenance of the cameras as one of the ingredients in the specifications,” he added.
Former commissioner of police and director of the Tamil Nadu Police Housing Corporation (TNPHC) DGP AK Viswanathan, who is credited with building the Third Eye infrastructure in Chennai, said, “every police inspector in the city should take the responsibility of CCTV camera maintenance.”
In 2019, due to his initiative, the government sanctioned ₹10 lakh each to the 12 police districts in the city for camera maintenance for a year. Apart from this, four traffic deputy commissioners of police were also given ₹10 lakh each for the maintenance of the CCTV cameras, said Viswanathan.
Even now, out of self-interest many mid-level officers are finetuning CCTV network in their respective areas using their own funds. The biggest handicap in maintaining the CCTV assets is the absence of mapping their location and their density in each zone. “We have an in-house software for SHOs, which will show how many CCTV cameras are installed in their jurisdiction, and if they are functional or dysfunctional.” This mobile App is being upgraded, said the officer.