• Other schemes

KARACHI: Part of an ambitious project to install 10,000 video surveillance cameras in Karachi seems not to be on the list of priorities of the government as it was given only around Rs11 million for the next financial year, senior government officials said.

However, they said the major part of a similar project included in the Safe City programme was duly covered on a priority.

Thousands of video surveillance high-resolution cameras would be purchased under the Safe City project, but the same did not reflect in the scheme given in the budget that was part of the Sustainable Development Goal No. 16, they added.

An amount of only Rs60m had been allocated for the scheme, which was approved in October last year and is to be completed by 2020, but not a single penny was spent on it during the current fiscal year.

According to budget documents, the Sindh Police Video Surveillance System Extension has been given Rs10.9m for the next fiscal year. The project is an integral part of the scheme in which 10,000 cameras will be installed at 2,000 new locations in Karachi.

Police video surveillance system extension gets only Rs10.9m

The documents show the Sindh government’s little interest in the scheme, but the officials insisted that it was a small part of the Rs10 billion Safe City project which the provincial authorities were carrying out with greater interest.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had approved the Rs10bn project in October last year and said the cameras would be installed in the city within three years.

The officials said that over 2,000 neighbourhoods had been identified in terms of criminal activities where new cameras would be installed. The cameras would be connected with the command and control centre.

CM Shah had then said his government was trying to enhance the capacity of those entrusted with the task of maintaining law and order in Karachi.

Other schemes

The officials said the government had earlier allocated Rs200m for a project for installation of surveillance cameras at places of worship of minority communities in Sindh, and Rs100m had been released during the current fiscal.

However, the officials admitted that the pace of expenditure remained slow due to traditional red tape which resulted in spending not more than 11 per cent of the released amount.

The project was initiated last year on the instructions of Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari after certain places of worship had been vandalised and others received threats.

Another important project for improvement in security system by installing CCTV cameras at several jails in the province also needed to be properly kick-started. Under the project, cameras are to be installed at prisons in Karachi, Malir, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana, etc.

The scheme was launched in 2014 with the estimated cost of Rs195m, but it did not receive a single penny during the current fiscal year. It has been given only Rs1 million for the next financial year.

“All this shows the government’s whimsical approach. It makes ambitious plans when something bad happens and turns complacent when the tide passes by. This is not a good approach to deal with the sustainable development goals,” admitted a senior official.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2017