Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has approved a Rs. 5.5 billion agreement between the Sindh Police Department and the National Radio and Telecommunications Corporation (NRTC) for the first phase of the Smart Safe City project in Red Zone, Karachi.
The red zone in Saddar includes the CM House, the Governor House, and the surrounding areas. The Sindh government took nearly eight years to fund this project, which was envisaged and launched in 2016.
Meeting Attendees
The agreement was approved during a meeting at the CM House attended by Home Minister Zia Lanjar, Mayor Karachi Murtaza Wahab, Chief Secretary Asif Hyder Shah, IG Police Riffat Mukhtar, NRTC MD Brigadier Asim Ishaque, Sindh Safe Cities Authority DG Asif Aijaz Shaikh, and others.
Installation of Different Gadgets
During the meeting, it was revealed that the Smart Safe City project would include the installation of 1,300 CCTV cameras at 300 locations in the red zone and airport corridor, each with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) capability and a solar-powered battery backup within eight hours.
In addition, a 193-kilometer optical fibre cable network would connect 18 police stations.
The cameras would be linked to the Central Police Office’s Command and Control Centre, and there are plans to establish a permanent C&CC at the Karachi Police Office. The Smart Safe City project intends to incorporate facial recognition and number plate recognition systems.
It will make it easier to monitor hospitals for criminals/suspects, track suspects using multiple cameras, coordinate responses, manage criminal databases, and integrate with national databases.
A Long-awaited Project
The chief minister expressed his enthusiasm, saying that the long-awaited project was finally coming to fruition and that he hoped it would achieve its goals. He urged the NRTC to expedite the first phase, aiming for completion in 18 months rather than the planned 24.
The CM emphasised the pressing need for such initiatives, citing Karachi’s growing population, which is expected to exceed 20.38 million by 2030.
Controlling crime, managing critical incidents, maintaining public order, disaster management, and ensuring traffic safety were identified as top priorities, with technological integration seen as the key to achieving them.
The Smart Safe City Karachi conceptual framework includes rapid emergency response, digital forensics, incident analysis, situational awareness via centralised operations, real-time monitoring, systematic traffic and crowd management, incident response, and intelligent data correlation from multiple databases.
In August 2023, CM Shah held a soft launch for an integrated “C5ISR-based” safe city project. C5ISR is an acronym for command, control, communication, computing, cyber security, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
Officials describe the new contract between the NRTC and the Sindh Safe Cities Authority as “a kind of execution” of the previous soft launch.
To read our blog on “Murad Ali Shah became the 25th CM of Sindh,” click here
