1,524 CCTVs becomes operational in Navi Mumbai to track crime, traffic violations

Navi Mumbai launches operational CCTV project with 1,524 cameras to monitor law and order, crime, and traffic violations across the city.

Navi Mumbai: The CCTV project of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) which was inaugurated on March 15 by chief minister Eknath Shinde became operational on Saturday. Nearly 460 locations in Navi Mumbai will be under the surveillance of 1,524 high-definition closed-circuit television (CCTV) to help maintain law and order, monitor crime and track traffic violators in the city.

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While all the cameras installed are operational in zone I area of Belapur to Vashi and zone II Digha to Kopar Khairane area, 100 more are planned to be installed in zone II this month.

Tata Advanced Systems Ltd. (TASL) has implemented the ₹127.63 crore CCTV Surveillance and Command & Control Led Service Orchestration project with five-year maintenance. There are plans to have 1,600 cameras installed eventually.

The CCTV network includes 954 fixed cameras, 165 pan-tilt-zoom cameras for 360 degree panoramic view monitoring, nine thermal cameras for the coastal zones, 96 evidence cameras and 324 automated number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras along with other cameras.

The high-definition cameras will cover locations chosen by the civic body in consultation with Navi Mumbai police.

The main chowks, bus depots, markets, gardens, grounds, junctions, public places with large crowds, important civic and other buildings, highways, including Palm Beach road, Thane-Belapur road, Sion-Panvel highway, among others, will come under the lens. The sensitive coastal zones will have thermal cameras for constant vigil.

The ANPR cameras that read the number plates of the vehicles will enable e-challans to be sent along with vehicle photographs to motorists who violate the traffic norms.

As part of its disaster management plan, along with the CCTV cameras that will be installed at 24 traffic junctions, the civic body has planned installation of a public address system there. It will help give instruction and guidance during emergencies.

The network with storage capacity of 30 days, is manned through an integrated command and control centre located at NMMC head office in Belapur. It is linked to Navi Mumbai police offices as well.

“In the coming 15 days, 100 more CCTVs are planned to be installed. There were some network and agency permission issues that are being sorted for the remaining cameras. The entire network will be operational this month,” said Shirish Aradwad, NMMC city engineer.

A TASL official said CCTV Surveillance Systems with Advanced Analytics and ITMS consisting of Automatic Number Plate Recognition and Red Light Violation Detection among other systems have been installed at 460 locations across eight wards, including all important entry and exit points throughout the city. “Monitoring of all these locations will be done from nine police stations and will be centrally monitored from the Integrated Command & Control Centre at NMMC headquarters in Belapur,” he said.

Following the terror attacks in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai was the first city in Maharashtra to install 282 CCTV cameras in 2013. Since the cameras were outdated and non-functional, NMMC decided to completely upgrade the system in 2019.

The civic body had prepared a ₹154 crore proposal which was kept pending for long by the general body. When the bids were finally called, the lowest bid was of ₹271 crore, which the civic body rejected.

New bids were then called and the contract at a much lower price of ₹127.63 cr was awarded to TASL.