An Integrated Command Control Centre was inaugurated at the Vellore Corporation office on Friday to monitor the movement of vehicles and people in the town, including the district’s border areas.
Minister for Water Resources Duraimurugan inaugurated the centre that can monitor 318 CCTV cameras that are mainly installed within the limits of the civic body, which has 60 wards with a population of around 8 lakh persons.
“Initially, the centre will help monitor traffic violations like helmet rule and improper parking through number plate recognition. Later, the facility will get a facial recognition system,” said S. Rajesh Kannan, Superintendent of Police (SP), Vellore.
At present, the Vellore Corporation has installed around 500 CCTV cameras under the Smart Cities Mission to monitor various infrastructure work and civic amenities. Additionally, the district police have installed 270 cameras under the Self Sufficient Scheme (SSS). Individuals, non-profit organisations and traders have also installed 200 cameras within the town limits.
Of the total 970 cameras, the centre will initially monitor feeds from 318, which are mainly in Vellore’s Old Town. Later, cameras in other key areas, like Katpadi, Sathuvachari and Rangapuram, will be linked to the facility.
Officials said initially, the centre would be operated from the Vellore Corporation office before being relocated to the SP office premises after a month and a half. Then, more cameras will be linked to the facility.
Apart from this, high-powered automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras have also been installed at the Christianpet, Mutharasikuppam, Pathirappally, Sainagunta and Paratharami border checkposts in the district to monitor the movement of vehicles and to prevent illegal sand mining.
In addition to the normal CCTV cameras and the round-the-clock police presence at these checkposts, the ANPR cameras will provide live feeds to the control rooms at the Collectorate, SP office and the Department of Mines, which handles sand mining in the Palar. Each ANPR camera has a storage capacity of 15 days. Each checkpost would have at least two of these cameras, officials added.
On the occasion, Mayor Sujatha Anandakumar, Vellore MP D. Kathir Anand, Vellore MLA P. Karthikeyan and Collector P. Kumaravel Pandian participated.
