Cuttack, June 29: Three years have passed since police proposed to install CCTV cameras at various strategic locations of the city for a wider surveillance system but nothing much has been done on this front.

Sources at the police commissioner's office said that after a survey in 2014 it had been decided that the State Police Housing and Welfare Corporation would implement the project. A year later, tenders were floated for executing it. The project apparently did not take off because of poor response. As things stand, the project does not look like it will be implemented before the end of the year.

Police officials conceded that the project had been put on hold till completion of the new office building of deputy commissioner of police (Cuttack). "As the control room for monitoring the CCTVs had been planned at the DCP's office, the project will start after completion of the new building," DCP Sanjeev Arora told The Telegraph today.

The Rs 8-crore CCTV project envisaged installation of CCTV cameras with high-end sensors along with red-light violation detection and automatic number plate recognition system.

This apart, the project also included installation of pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras at some places. PTZ cameras facilitate high-resolution imaging and also make long shots possible along with zooming. Installation of PTZ cameras with 500-metre coverage range had been planned under the project.

Sources said initially the project had been planned with 32 cameras at eight important traffic junctions with control rooms at the respective nearest police stations.

But later, the installation of four cameras each at 20 locations was planned by the police as part of a wider surveillance system to bring in maximum locations, including all entry and exit routes to the city.

Accordingly, a central control room for the CCTV cameras was planned at the DCP's office. But the new locations are yet to be identified, sources said.

"Construction of the new DCP office building is nearing completion. Almost 90 per cent work is done," Arora said. "Once the building is ready, implementation of the (CCTV camera) project including the tendering process, will take six months."

The Orissa High Court constituted traffic management committee for Cuttack expects that the cameras on traffic signals and along busy roads would be useful for surveillance and monitoring traffic.<>

Advocate Pravat Ranjan Dash, a member of the committee, said: "Using CCTV cameras to enforce speed and red light rules would be effective in catching violators and imposing fines. Besides, the cameras installed at intersections can encourage safe driving habits."