₹200 crore approved for maintenance of 210,000 CCTVs in Delhi

Delhi government allocates ₹201 crore for CCTV network maintenance, covering 210,000 cameras to enhance crime monitoring and control transfer to police.

The Delhi government has cleared a ₹201 crore-budget for extending the maintenance of the Capital’s CCTV network by the Public Works Department (PWD), officials informed on Friday.

₹200 crore approved for maintenance of 210,000 CCTVs in Delhi

The network includes 210,000 cameras installed across neighbourhoods, markets and public spaces.

The extension comes as the existing Comprehensive Annual Maintenance Contract (CAMC) is set to expire in December and the PWD is also looking at more streamlined data sharing and possible shift of operational control of some cameras to the Delhi Police.

“The expenditure includes costs for equipment upkeep, data charges, subsidies to households hosting cameras, and manpower deployed at the central Command and Control Centre (CCC), located at the PWD headquarters at ITO. It is crucial to keep the network live 24 hours as the PWD cameras have helped greatly in recent incidents of crime and court cases,” a PWD official said.

The current CCTV network of PWD covers 140,000 cameras installed under Phase-I, with additional cameras being brought and installed to increase the number to over 250,000. The PWD also has 61,385 outdoor distribution enclosure (ODE) boxes that house around two to four critical hardware supporting cameras each, powered by UPS systems, 4G routers, and video recorders.

According to PWD officials, over 12,000 CCTV footage requests have been fulfilled for Delhi Police and more than 10,000 court summons have been attended to.

HT, earlier this month, reported that the Delhi Police will now be able to monitor footage from all CCTVs installed in the capital’s public spaces after the PWD, which had previously controlled the majority of such cameras in the capital, granted it full access.

“Footage retrieval takes an average of 7-10 days, routed through a workflow that begins with a police request and ends with PWD sharing the footage after verification and data retrieval. This is one of the key reasons that police have been seeking charge of the cameras and reduce the footage retrieval time,” the official added.

Officials said that as the handover process to Delhi Police gains momentum, the cameras will increasingly support real-time crime detection, monitoring of high-footfall zones and response during emergencies such as fires, accidents and medical crises.

The maintenance budget of ₹200 crore includes around ₹71.82 crore as reimbursement to power distribution companies for electricity consumed by camera systems installed on private premises. The cost also includes ₹111 crore for CAMC services, ₹6.57 crore towards data charges for 4G SIMs and ₹21.60 lakh for miscellaneous expenses.

Officials said that earlier local access was offered to residents, RWAs and market associations for live view and playback, which was stopped a few years ago. Access is now limited to the area DM, DCP, local police and PWD, who can view footage within the Wi-Fi range of ODE boxes or through remote systems without admin rights.

Maintenance teams under PWD continue to replace non-functional hardware, attend dismantling or shifting requests raised by residents and restore equipment affected by theft or damage.