Kolkata buses now women-friendly; CCTV cameras restore faith

Kolkata, April 16: The state's Calcutta State Transport Corporation has installed 632 buses with CCTV cameras under the JNNURM scheme to make travelling safer for women passengers.

According to CSTC managing director, Bhishmadeb Dasgupta, three CCTV cameras will be installed.

"Two CCTVs are installed inside the bus, one in the front, another at the middle, while the third one is placed outside at the rear of the vehicle," Dasgupta said.

The rear camera would be recording the movement of the vehicles on the roads in the vicinity. "The CCTV cameras will make women comfortable. They will have the feeling that somebody is having a close watch on them," he further added justifying the use of the cameras.

However, there are some limitations too. The cameras have a memory of just 100 GB and can store things for just three days, after which they will be automatically overwritten. "After three days the footage will be overwritten automatically. So people with complaint of any theft or pickpocketing, bad behaviour by the ticket-conductor or the bus driver or any other problem, have to register that within three days," said Dasgupta.

Appreciating the ,ove, a top police officer said,"Definitely this is a good move and it will hopefully cut down on the number of crimes like molestation, pick-pocketing and snatching."

The CSTC is also working on the IT-based communication and surveillance system to get live feed from a running bus. He explains,"We are also planning to have live footage from a running bus via streaming video using the GRPS. The streaming will be fed directly to Control Room monitors in the headquarters before they are archived. This will be under the Intelligence Transport System project and we are working on it. Hopefully it will be ready in another six months."

OneIndia News