SHILLONG, May 7: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma’s recent statement about the government spending a massive amount of Rs 150 crore to install 150 closed circuit television cameras across the city as part of the Shillong Integrated Command and Control Centre (SICCC), has become the subject of online trolling with social media users pointing fingers at the huge expenditure and terming it as another scam in the making.
Social media users pointed out that the government was spending almost Rs 50 lakh on each CCTV camera, forcing the Shillong Smart City Project to issue a clarification on Tuesday, denying charges of spending such a huge amount on mere installation of CCTV cameras.
Executive Director of Shillong Smart City Project, Dr Vijay Kumar said that the ICCC under the Shillong Smart City Project funded by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs will be completed soon and Rs 151.77 crore is being allocated for the entire ICCC and not for 300 CCTVs as was being claimed in a widely-circulated social media post.
“The ICCC being implemented pan city under Shillong Smart City project consists of the ICCC building, ICCC platform and other software, data centre and radio frequency network,” he said.
Dr Kumar also said that apart from the above major components, Shillong city will witness a technological development with the installation of field devices which consists of 368 CCTV cameras (for surveillance and traffic management), 42 emergency call boxes, 58 public address systems, 20 variable message displays, 300 LED streetlights/ smart lights with light point controller, 60 public Wi-Fi hotspots, 50 GPS based vehicle tracking for solid waste management, and 200 smart bins.
“The ICCC which is to be the brain for city planning and city operations will serve as the central hub for various city functions including surveillance, data processing, emergency response coordination, and smart city applications,” he said.
