Sindh govt, NRTC to jointly solve Safe City project issues

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, while presiding over a joint meeting with National Radio & Telecommunication Corporation (NRTC) and Safe City Authority officials, has constituted their joint working group under Chief Secretary Sohial Rajput to sort out all issues and bottlenecks between the two entities so that he final PC-I of the Safe City Project for Karachi could be prepared.

The meeting was specially attended by Federal Defence Production Secretary Lt-Gen (retd) Humayun Aziz, Chief Secretary Sohail Rajput, Home Secretary Saeed Mangnejo, Special Secretary to CM Raheem Shaikh, DG Sindh Safe City Project Maqsood Memon, MD NRTC Brig Asim Ishfaq, Project Director Safe City Commodore (retd) Raheel Masood.

Giving a detailed presentation to the CM, MD NRTC Brigadier (retd) Asim Ishfaq said that the plan to install 10,000 high-definition cameras in Karachi under the Safe City Project had been agreed upon.

Out of 10,000 cameras, some would have the ability to move around while other cameras would be static. The entire system would be controlled through a Central Command & Control Centre with three regional command and control centres. There would be surveillance through over 2,000 sites with the ability to analyze facial recognition, crowd and traffic amassing mapping and other features.

The main issue which came under discussion was the laying of fiber optic cables for which various roads of the city would be dug up and obtaining permissions from different utility services of federal, provincial, and local governments would be a lengthy process.

Therefore, utilisation of the PTCL system or any other such existing telecommunication system for the purpose came under discussion. The DG Sindh Safe City project gave his assessment and presented ways to get the project kicked off at the earliest.

He also raised the issues of handing over the responsibility of the operation of the entire system to the NRTC or any other organisation. The CM, after listening to the entire discussion, constituted a joint committee of the Sindh Safe City Authority and the NRTC under the chief secretary.

He directed the chief secretary to hold a few meetings of the committee and remove all the issues and bottlenecks so that final PC-I of the project could be made to start the project at the earliest.