The Ministry of Railways is installing video surveillance system (VSS) at 756 major railway stations of the country. With this, the monitoring of railway stations will be fine-tuned and criminals can be identified with easily.
The RailTel Corporation, a government company, has been selected to implement the scheme on the ground. The project is being implemented by the Indian Railways and RailTel under the Nirbhaya Fund. Railway officials say that this work will be completed by January next year.
The work of installation of VSS (Network of CCTV Cameras) at the railway stations entrusted to the RailTel has already been initiated. The first phase of the project will include A1, B and 756 major railway stations of class C. While this work is likely to be completed by January 2023, work for the remaining stations will be done at the time of implementation of Phase-II.
Under the project, the railway station’s waiting room, reservation counter, parking area, main entrance / exit, platform, foot over bridge, booking office, etc. will be included.
Aruna Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, RailTel, says the most modern software and hardware will be used for the purpose. According to her, the VSS will be IP-based and will have a network of CCTV cameras. These CCTV cameras will work on optical fiber cable and video feeding of CCTV cameras will be displayed not only at local RPF posts but also in centralized CCTV control rooms at divisional and zonal level. CCTV cameras and video feeds installed at stations will be monitored at these 3 levels to ensure enhanced safety and security of Railway premises.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled video analytics software and facial recognition software work in this system. Due to this, it will be easier to trace the declared criminals, whose photos or appearances have already been circulated. As soon as such criminals come into the station’s camera, the system will automatically recognize their faces. Then RPF will get its information. The RPF will share that information with the state police and will also capture it.