Jaipur’s eye in sky partially defunct
The Abhay Command Centre in Jaipur, popular as ‘eye in the sky’, is “partially defunct” due to “several technical issues”. The Jaipur police commissioner’s office has written a letter in this regard to Tech Mahindra & Mahindra Defense, the agency providing technical service for the project.
The high-tech command centre, set up at the police commissioner’s office in Jaipur in 2016 to have an aerial view of the city roads for crowd management and crime control, gets feed from 470 close-circuit television (CCTV) cameras installed at the same number of locations in the city.
However, the cameras are not connected with video analytics software and the pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras are not rotating, stated the letter written to the project manager, operational, of the company.
Video analytics software helps police match people and vehicles in their database with those on the road.
The command centre is also not getting live feed from three drone cameras. The cameras have batteries that run out of power in 15 minutes, making them ineffective to monitor demonstrations and protests. “In the RFP (request for proposal), the capacity of the batteries was shown to be 30 minutes,” said a police official on the condition of anonymity.
The letter also states that out of the nine face recognition cameras, one installed at the Jaipur Sessions Court is “dysfunctional for many days”.
FRS (facial recognition system) cameras enable crime control room to keep a check on offenders and suspects in large crowd. “The control room has not been able to get the live location of the complainant and the nearby patrolling vans of police. As a result, it becomes difficult to get live location of the police vans,” the official said.
A software installed in the system is unable to detect location and time of video uploads on the internet. This makes tracking controversial videos difficult for police.
Police officials said that they were trying to sort out the technical issues. “We are in touch with the officers of the DoIT (department of information and technology) and the agency, which is providing the technical assistance. Whatever problem is coming we will fix it out,” said Nitin Deep Blaggan, additional commissioner of police.
When reached out for his comments, Tech Mahindra & Mahindra Defense project manager Krunal Sobati said, “Better you discuss this issue with the police commissioner or the DoIT. I am not the right person to answer these questions. I am just providing technical support to this project.”
Technical manager of Raj Comp Info Services Limited (RISL) Amit Sharma said, “Video analytics is working at 30-40 places. Sometimes, the FRS loses its connectivity due to fluctuation in electricity and poor network. The drone cameras are working effectively and have the backup for 25-30 minutes.”
Sharma added, “We will sort out the issue of rotation of PTZ camera and other technical issues.” RISL works under the aegis of principal secretary, DoIT, and Government of Rajasthan.
JAIPUR: