New Delhi, Feb. 26: The menace of men barging into women's compartments is bad enough. But CCTV cameras are positively "creepy".

That was the reaction of a woman after railway minister Suresh Prabhu announced a plan to install surveillance cameras in train compartments on some routes.

"For the safety of our women passengers, surveillance cameras will be provided on a pilot basis in selected mainline coaches and ladies' compartments of suburban coaches without compromising on privacy," Prabhu said in his budget speech.

Several women found the prospect of cameras in coaches "uncomfortable".

Details of the plan are not available but round-the-clock monitoring of a closed space like a coach is not the same as CCTV surveillance of streets. Travelling for long hours and during the night with cameras keeping a watch - with no certainty about the credentials of those who might be monitoring or accessing the visuals - can be disconcerting.

"Surveillance will be intrusive and uncomfortable," said Madhu Singh, 27, a Delhi-based public relations professional who spent her college years travelling by Mumbai's suburban trains.

Mumbai-based advertisement executive Suhani Seth said she found the idea "creepy". "My first reaction was that it is creepy. There are cases in which men forcibly get into women's compartments. They also throw stones. Will CCTV cameras watching me every minute stop these problems?" said the 35-year-old who has travelled by Mumbai local trains all her life.

Singh said the railways, instead of installing cameras, should increase the presence of security personnel, both 
on platforms and on trains. “So that those who tease or harass women can be caught instantly.” 

It was also not clear how Prabhu will ensure that his promise — privacy will not be compromised — is fulfilled

Activist Kavita Krishnan referred to an incident on a Delhi Metro less than six months ago when CCTV footage of women and couples were leaked as pornography on the Net.

“This incident should serve as a warning bell as to how vulnerable CCTVs in public spaces can make women,” Krishnan wrote on her Facebook page.

She added: “International studies have shown that there is no evidence that CCTVs or the fear of being watched has reduced crimes. Instead these studies show that the data from surveillance videos are almost invariably misused.”

Krishnan said the women’s rights movement has never demanded CCTV surveillance in any form, except in police stations.

“Moral policing in the name of ‘safety’ and sexual stalking/snooping are only two different sides of the same coin for women. This is why the only spaces where CCTVs have been demanded by the women’s movement, have been inside police thanas, to monitor police behaviour and prevent custodial violence,” she said.

A statement from the Left-affiliated All India Democratic Women’s Association said safety of women couldn’t be “reduced to only one of enhanced surveillance and technological solutions such as CCTVs and mobile apps”.

“The real experience of women on trains is that the railway police and administration is insufficient and insensitive to their complaints. There is also a need to increase the number of women’s compartments and prevent men from encroaching in them, improve lighting in all compartments and toilets and on railway stations and posting more policewomen,” the statement said.

Several women passengers, however, gave a thumbs-up to three other proposals announced today: an all-India helpline number (138); another toll-free number (182) for security issues, and a mobile application to redress railway-related complaints.