A traffic signal post at Rabindra Mandap Square. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, June 6: Fasten your seatbelts and think twice before speeding as closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras will capture you on reel for cops to pin you down with evidence.

Traffic posts in the city are set to be equipped with modern signalling system and CCTVs. The number of signal posts will also go up from 18 to 25.

The sub-committee on traffic consisting of officials of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, police, public works department and the National Highways Authority of India today inspected the squares to examine the condition of traffic lights. They are considering the possibility of setting up seven more traffic posts in the city.

As the civic body is the co-ordinating agency of the traffic light installation task across the city, a meeting of the committee was held under the chairmanship of the municipal commissioner Sanjib Kumar Mishra today. Mishra said: “The new posts will have real-time clocks and CCTV cameras. They will be developed in the build-own-operate mode.”

The agencies, to be involved for giving the traffic posts a new makeover, will install the equipment at their own cost and operate them. But, the agency and the corporation will share the revenue from advertisements. “The agency will decide the advertisement tariff and pay the civic body according to the scheduled government rate. The excess collection will be its profit,” said Mishra.

This time, there will be light emitting diode (LED) lights and the video surveillance cameras installed at every post. The cameras will be integrated to a central control room to be used by the traffic cops. A computer software will help the system to capture image simultaneously from all traffic posts for any future reference.

The surveillance system will help the traffic police in detecting violation of traffic signals, speed detection, vehicle classification, vehicle detection, crowd management and even face recognition for crime detection.

Till now, the corporation and traffic police authorities have not decided on any firm for installation of the traffic signal system. However, a Hyderabad-based agency has shown interest in this regard.

Tushar Satpathy, a senior citizen and activist-turned-writer staying at Madhusudan Nagar, said: “The traffic lights are almost defunct across the city, and we need to urgently revamp the system.”