Over 600 CCTVs installed at Chandni Chowk to check encroachment, Delhi Police chief tells HC

“It [installation of cameras] has come up with the cooperation of various associations working in that market area only. These cameras are of the same specification which we are going to have under the Safe City Project in the entire Delhi in future. If the need arises, this can be integrated with our command and control centre situated in the police headquarters,” Delhi Police Commissioner Rakesh Asthana told the division bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma.

The court on February 10 had observed that the authorities cannot surrender and abdicate their responsibilities as same would only lead to anarchy and a complete failure of rule of law, while asking the commissioners of Delhi Police and North Delhi Municipal Corporation to remain present before it to explain how they propose to deal with the encroachment at Chandni Chowk.

Besides the police-installed 508 cameras, Asthana told the court, 166 more cameras are being installed at Chandni Chowk by other government agencies in the next four months.

“There are other cameras installed by ECIL in 2013-14 which are not operational now because of re-development of the area. We will be reinstalling them. So far as surveillance of the area is concerned, we are doing it sufficiently,” he submitted.

Asthana also told the court that beat patrolling in the area will be supervised at a senior level. “The police will be having a very constructive approach with municipal corporation authorities,” he added.

A counsel representing the Public Works Department (PWD) also told the court that 130 cameras have been installed by PWD but the control room is not yet functional in respect of these cameras. The court directed the PWD to make the control room functional in the next two weeks and thereafter hand it over to the Delhi Police.

The court also said that beat constables, who are properly trained and sensitised to deal with the aspect of illegal encroachments in the Chandni Chowk area, be deployed there.

“We again direct the Commissioner of Delhi Police and Commissioner North MCD to continue to monitor and supervise through their respective officers the removal of unauthorised encroachments, hawking and vending in Chandni Chowk area irrespective of whether it is the shopkeepers or the hawkers and vendors who may be resorting to the same,” it said.