KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Friday approved Rs30 billion for the Safe City project, under which 10,000 CCTV cameras would be installed in the city in three phases and each phase would be completed within 12 months starting from the next financial year, 2021-22.
According to the press release issued in this regard, the CM was chairing a meeting to review the progress of the Safe City Project. The meeting was attended by IT Minister Taimoor Talpur, Chief Secretary Umtaz Shah, P&D Chairman Mohammad Waseem, Home ACS Usman Chachar, PSCM Sajid Jamal Abro, Finance Secretary Hassan Naqvi, Safe City Project In-charge Additional Inspector General (IG) Imran Yakoob Minhas, the provincial head of NRTC Brig (r) Nayar, NRTC General Manager (GM) Sohail Anjum and others.
The meeting was told that the National Radio & Telecommunication Corporation (NRTC) has submitted technical and financial proposals which needed to be evaluated by the evaluation committee.
The chief minister approved the constitution of a nine-member technical committee under the chief operating officer (CEO) of the safe city project to evaluate the NRTC proposal.
He also approved the proposal of assigning the charge of CEO to Muquddus Haider and chief technical officer to Tabasum Abbsi. Notifications for the evaluation committee, CEO and technical officers would be issued.
The technical committee will evaluate the technical and financial proposal in line with PC-I documents and would also evaluate the project phasing as recommended by NRTC in consultation with the P&D Department.
The technical committee will also look after the overall activities of the project execution, including its execution.
The chief minister approved the execution plan under which 10,000 cameras would be installed in three phases and each phase would be completed within 12 months.
In the first phase, cameras would be installed at all the entry/exit points of the city and in district South for Rs9.9 billion. In the second phase, cameras would be installed in three districts, to be selected later on for Rs9.8 billion. In the third and the concluding phase, three more districts would be covered for Rs9.7 billion.
The chief minister directed the finance department to arrange Rs10 billion for the first phase in the next financial year.
“I want to start the project at the start of next financial year, 2021-22,” he said and also directed P&D Chairman Waseem to start the approval of the PC-1 from all the relevant forums by the end of the current financial year.
CM Murad was told that 8,000 cameras would be of 12 MP and 2,000 of eight MP. In this way, 10,000 cameras would be installed at over 2,000 locations with solar back up. There would be a central and regional command centre and a database centres.
He was told that at present 2,196 cameras were installed at 538 locations in the city, of them 1,201 belonged to KMC, 198 IT department and 155 to Sindh police.
