Safe City Project for Peshawar put in cold storage

PESHAWAR: Despite holding several meetings and doing homework for years, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa authorities have failed to launch the Safe City Project in the provincial capital to keep check on the criminal elements.

After the completion of the project in Islamabad and Lahore, the Punjab government had announced the Safe City Project for seven other cities in the province. A special Safe Cities Authority has also been set up in Punjab since 2015.

Nothing, however, has been done in Peshawar during the last many years to practically kick off the project, mostly due to wrangling between the government departments. A huge amount was allocated for the project in the budget of 2013-14, but no progress could be made.

In August, Chief Minister Mahmood Khan chaired a meeting and decided to accelerate work on Safe City Project for Peshawar. The meeting decided that the project will be based on four major components, including integrated emergency response system, integrated surveillance system, intelligent traffic management system and electronic evidence managements system.

Former chief minister Pervez Khattak during a meeting in February last year had directed all the departments to expedite work on the project to help secure the lives and properties of the residents of Peshawar.

The major part of the Safe City Project is the installation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras at key points in the city to keep check on the movement of suspicious and criminal elements. One of the plans was to

install around 6,000 cameras and 800 points in parts of urban areas of Peshawar.

Nothing has been done to execute the much needed project aimed at securing Peshawar and improving the law and order situation in the provincial capital. The project coordination unit of the KP Police was tasked to complete the project to secure Peshawar, which has suffered the most number of terrorist attacks in the country during the last many years. A number of other government departments were tasked to support the project coordination unit.

After many years of theoretical work on the project, the government has done nothing practical to materialise it, which shows either its lack of interest or the incompetence of the officials concerned.

Under the Safe City Project, over 6,000 CCTVs will help the police keep check on the movement of suspicious elements and maintain record of any untoward incident to help the cops in investigating and regulating the flow of traffic. The CCTV cameras will be monitored from a modern control centre equipped with the latest technology.

An official said the CCTV cameras will also improve the public dealing of police at checkpoints and other places as they will be under constant watch.

The installation of the CCTV cameras will also help the police check street crimes that have recorded an increase in recent years.

The Safe City Project for Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar were proposed almost a decade back.

The projects in Lahore and Islamabad have been completed, but work on the project in Peshawar hasn’t even started in Peshawar, which needed it the most as it faced countless terror attacks in recent past.

Thousands of people, including policemen, soldiers and civilians, lost their lives in suicide attacks, bomb blasts, rocket barrages, target killings and other kind of attacks in Peshawar.

Schools, trade centres, hospitals, offices and other buildings were attacked, causing billions of rupees losses to the city and its dwellers.