KARACHI: The Smart Safe City project on Wednesday took a step forward when the chief minister approved signing an agreement of Rs5.5 billion for the project and high security “red zone” and airport corridor were marked as its initial points where 1,300 CCTV cameras with facial and automatic vehicle’s number plate recognition system would be installed.

However, it took the Sindh government almost eight years to take the decision to this effect for the project which was envisaged and launched in 2016.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah approved signing an agreement of Rs5.5 billion between the Sindh Police and National Radio & Telecommunication Corporation (NRTC) to launch the first phase of the Smart Safe City project in the red zone.

Earlier, Director General of the Sindh Safe Cities Authority Asif Aijaz Shaikh and Managing Director NRTC Brig Asim Ishaque signed the agreement.

‘Red zone’ and airport corridor will be covered with 13,000 cameras

“The CM was told that under the Smart Safe City project, 1,300 CCTV cameras would be installed at 300 sites in Red Zone and airport corridor with FR [facial recognition] and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) capability within eight hours solar backup,” said a statement issued by the CM House.

“The CM was also told that the 193-kilometre OFC [optic fibre cable] network would connect 18 police stations. The cameras would relate to the Command & Control Centre of CPO and then a permanent C&CC would be developed at KPO,” the statement said.

Under the system, monitoring of hospitals for criminals or suspects, multiple camera tracking against suspects and response, database management of criminals and integration with national, criminal, and other databases would be done, it added.

“The project was much awaited and finally it was seeing the light of the day. I hope that it would achieve its target. I want NRTC to complete the first phase in the one and half years,” the statement quoted the CM as saying.

The meeting was told that the safety system would safeguard the city through artificial intelligence-based digital transformation. The CM said that Karachi had more than 20.38 million population which would increase by 2030.

“Therefore, controlling crime and critical incidents, public unrest, disaster management and traffic safety were his (CM’s) top priorities and their solution lay in technological integration and cyber security,” said the statement.

The conceptual framework of the smart safe city Karachi includes swift delivery- response and services- digital forensics and analysis of incidents, situational awareness through one window operation, real-time monitoring of activities, systematised traffic & crowd examining and monitoring, timely action against untoward incidents and intelligence data co-relations from a database.

In August 2023, CM Shah had performed soft launch of integrated “C5ISR-based” safe city project. C5ISR stands for command, control, communication, computer, cyber security, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Officials say the fresh contract between the NRTC and the Sindh Safe Cities Authority is “a kind of execution” of the same soft launch.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2024