After penalty warning by Delhi govt, firm speeds up CCTV installation
A senior official said that between August 23, when the warning was issued, and September 23, around 33,000 cameras were installed across the city’s 70 assembly constituencies.
After the Delhi government warned Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) of imposing a Rs 16-crore penalty for “installing CCTV cameras at a slow pace”, the number of new cameras installed since has risen up by three times. BEL is the executing agency in Delhi government’s CCTV project.
A senior official said that between August 23, when the warning was issued, and September 23, around 33,000 cameras were installed across the city’s 70 assembly constituencies. Under the project, each constituency will get 2,000 cameras.
“The number of cameras that have been installed are about 42,000 as of today. We are hoping that BEL will complete work around the deadline of November 22,” the official, who has access to the daily monitoring report of the project, said.
Daily reports regarding the project are submitted to the Chief Minister’s Office. While threatening to invoke the penalty clause, the government had said that CM Arvind Kejriwal has expressed “strong displeasure over the unjustified slow pace of work”.
According to the government, BEL is under legal obligation to complete installation of CCTVs within nine months as per its agreement with the government. In case it fails to do so, it is liable to pay a 10% penalty.
The contract was awarded to BEL in November, 2018, and work was supposed to begin in February. However, the work started in June. By August 23, only 11,000 CCTVs were installed.
Meanwhile, the government has launched the second phase of its CCTV project, under which 1.4 lakh more CCTVs will be installed, with the floating of two tenders for 70,000 cameras each.
Copyright: The Indian Express 2019