New Delhi, May 16: The government plans to acquire security and surveillance technology from the US for deploying in public places to reduce the risk of terrorist attacks, science and technology minister Kapil Sibal said today.

Central Electronics Limited, a public sector unit managed by the science and technology department, will procure hardware and software from a US company in the next six months and demonstrate its use on a busy platform at New Delhi railway station, Sibal said.

The technology will include a network of surveillance cameras, hand-held explosive detectors, X-ray scanners and walk-through portals, all managed by a central control system.

“We need this technology now,” Sibal said, but declined to identify the US company or provide specific details of the technologies that Central Electronics will procure. “They’ve agreed to give us hardware, software and all aspects of the technology to allow its indigenisation,” he said.

He said the technology would initially cost about Rs 24 crore, but is expected to drop after the process of indigenisation by the PSU with the help of a technology partner.

Research groups in India have been trying to develop advanced technologies for explosive detection. But Sibal and senior Central Electronics officials said none of these was commercial yet.

“We are looking for field-proven technologies that have already demonstrated outside India,” said Santosh Kaicker, chairman and managing director of the PSU.

But Kaicker declined to name the sites where the technologies under consideration have been demonstrated. Asked whether a tender had been floated for the technology, he said Central Electronics was in the process of doing so.

After initial demonstrations at New Delhi railway station, the PSU and its partner will indigenise the technology for deployment in other stations and public places across India, Sibal said.

Researchers in IIT Mumbai and the Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation have developed an electronic nose to detect explosives.

Researchers working on explosive detection technologies have long cautioned that sniffer dogs are the best detectors today.