” A large police control room with a huge wall-mounted screen linked to a chain of surveillance camera all over the town and the police keeping a watch over the entire city through this room”. Sounds like a movie scene from a Bollywood or a Hollywood movie! But this virtual setup has now come to life in Valsad. The “Netram Control Room”.
The Netram Control room of Valsad District Police is linked with 97 cameras which have been installed at 19 different locations in the district, main locations being Valsad and Vapi city Borders and city cross roads. With the aid of this advanced tech the police has been able to successfully solve a total of 268 crimes till date. Besides that a total of 26974 traffic memos have been issued through this control room. Leading to a collection of arround a sum of Rs. 70,93,000 of 18,532 memos.
As of now the main focus of the Netram Control room is to make the citizens follow traffic rules, by issuing memos to those using cellphones while driving, riding triple seat and ones not wearing seat belt. But besides this these cameras have been extremely helpful in solving many crimes like vehicle theft, burglary, robbery, hit and run, murder etc.
Thanks to these cameras, the gang who had entered Valsad to do Gautaskari was caught. As well as 3 offences of hit and run on the highway were easily solved.
Currently in phase one, the Netram Control Room in Valsad city, which was started on February 14th 2020, is monitoring 97 cameras installed at 19 locations in the district. In Phase 2, other talukas of the district will also be covered under this project. Currently these cameras are only installed in Valsad and Vapi city and major Cross roads but soon cameras will also be installed in Umargaon and later in Dharampur Kaprada along with other major cross roads in the urban area and majority of the tourist destinations in the district.
