RailTel has installed internet-based video surveillance systems (VSS) at 269 railway stations in 10 zones across the country.
Under this, 17 stations under the South Central Railway integrated with VSS control room were inaugurated. The other zones include East Central Railway, Southern Railway, South Western Railway, Western Railway, West Central Railway, Central Railway, North Eastern Railway, North Western Railway, North Central Railway and South-Central Railway. Further, work at 31 more stations to provide these VSS is in progress and will be completed soon. RailTel has also floated a tender for this work at 456 stations. According to RailTel, it will be completing the work at a total of 756 stations by March 2022.
As per RailTel, these centralised control rooms will display video feeds from VSS installed by RailTel at stations of respective zones. The recording of the video feeds from CCTV cameras will be stored for 30 days, while important videos can be stored for longer duration. Further, a network management system (NMS) has also been provided for monitoring of cameras, servers, UPS and switches, and these can be viewed from any web browser by authorised personnel. In addition, RailTel has also set up centralised security control rooms for the internet protocol-based system with funds allocated under the Nirbhaya Fund.
The development follows Railway Board order to RailTel for providing these surveillance systems at all A1, A, B, C, D and E category railway stations, coaches of premium trains and suburban electric multiple unit trains.
CCTV cameras under the system use optical fibre cables and the video feed is not only displayed at local railway protection force (RPF) posts but also at centralised CCTV control rooms at the divisional and zonal levels. CCTV cameras of stations and video feeds are monitored at three levels to ensure enhanced safety and security at railway premises, RailTel said. It is installing four types of IP cameras (dome type, bullet types, pan-tilt-zoom type and ultra HD-4k).
