E-Paper
Safe City project to be handed over to Lucknow police
Officials aware of the development confirmed that the Lucknow Smart City administration has written to the police, seeking formal transfer of operations
Following multiple trials, formalities are now ongoing to hand over the Safe City project to police for its full-scale functioning. Inderjit Singh, Lucknow municipal commissioner and chief executive officer (CEO) of Smart City, confirmed that several rounds of trials have been conducted and the process of transferring the surveillance project to the police is in progress.
According to a Smart City official, the Safe City project was launched in 2022, but the trials began in 2024 across various aspects, including the functioning of AI-enabled cameras in capturing real incidents and flagging fake incidents in real time, along with aspects related to video analytics and AI systems.
Earlier on March 23, 2025, Hindustan Times had exposed serious night-time monitoring lapses at the Safe City Control Centre. Authorities have now initiated the process to hand over the entire surveillance project to the Lucknow police for round-the-clock functioning.
Officials aware of the development confirmed that the Lucknow Smart City administration has written to the police, seeking formal transfer of operations. The municipal commissioner said, “We have successfully conducted multiple trial runs. The system is ready, and we have written to the police for the handover. The required formalities are in progress.”
The move follows HT’s March 23 ground report, which found that despite the installation of over 1,600 high-tech CCTV cameras across the city under the Smart City initiative, no staff was present to monitor them after 8pm. At the Smart City office, only two employees were present at around 7:30pm, preparing to leave for the day, raising serious questions about the security preparedness.
According to officials, the Safe City project includes a total of 1,061 cameras—855 fixed IP and 206 pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ)—installed at 222 sensitive locations. The total cost of the project is ₹88 crore. These cameras are linked to an integrated alert system designed to flag any suspicious activity directly to the police in real time.
However, in its current form, the Safe City surveillance is only partially operational during office hours. A private agency handles monitoring between 10am and 7–8pm. After that, although the cameras remain functional, no officials are posted to watch the live feeds.
Sources in the Smart City office said police officers are expected to visit the control centre soon, after which joint operations will begin.
“Once the handover is done, the private agency will continue to work alongside police officials to maintain 24x7 surveillance,” an official said.
The Integrated Traffic Management System (ITMS), which is already under police control, operates 24x7. The ITMS network includes 569 cameras: 190 fixed, 48 PTZ at 53 locations, and 331 Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras installed at 155 key intersections.
The ITMS was developed at a cost of ₹109.53 crore, according to AK Singh, general manager at the Smart City office.
Officials believe the full handover of the Safe City system to the police will replicate ITMS’s 24x7 model and plug the existing monitoring gaps. The city’s integrated alert system is already functional, but real-time action requires active human monitoring.
However, despite repeated attempts by HT to reach joint commissioner of police (law and order) Babloo Kumar for a comment, he remained unreachable on Sunday.
