Hyderabad gets India’s biggest, ultra-modern Police Command and Control Centre
Apart from policing, centre will help in dealing with disasters and emergencies
Hyderabad: In a big leap to make Hyderabad the safest city in the country, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday inaugurated the Police Integrated Command and Control Centre.
The iconic centre in Banjara Hills, the heart of the city, is the biggest such facility in the country equipped with the most sophisticated communication facilities that will enable the police to monitor every corner of the city through a network of half a million CCTV cameras. Another equal number of CCTV cameras across the state will also be linked to the Centre for the monitoring of the situation in the state.
The chief minister, in the presence of home minister Mohammed Mahmood Ali and the entire top brass of the administration and the state police, unveiled the plaque marking the formal opening of the Centre spread over five towers.
After the formal inauguration the Rao and his cabinet colleagues went around different levels and parts of the building and hailed the minute planning which went into the construction of the project.
Addressing the gathering, Chief Minister KCR lauded the efforts of DGP Mahinder Reddy who had initiated the idea as the then police commissioner of Hyderabad. “This is all about the fusion of technology”, he said. “This Centre will also help in dealing with natural disasters and providing effective coordination among different agencies for unified community services” the Chief Minister said.
“This will be highly useful not only in day to day policing but also in emergency situations”, the CM added.
The Centre will enable us for even better control over any crisis situation, he said. “Crime rate has already come down in the city despite heavy urbanisation”.
“Our emphasis has always been on a people-friendly police and Telangana police is shaping into a friendly police”, he said. “It is becoming a model for the police in India”.
Apart from several other facilities the Centre will also house the office of the Hyderabad City Police commissioner, a war room and control room from where all the CCTV cameras will be monitored. The 272 feet high towers will also have a helipad for emergency operations.
The facility spread over 640,000 square feet built up area was built at a cost of Rs 6 billion, officials said.
Speaking on the occasion DGP Mahinder Reddy said that the Centre was going to play a critical role in successfully dealing with natural disasters and fire accidents by bringing about complete coordination among different agencies and also ensuring law and order.
⦿ The five-tower building has been built in the heart of Hyderabad at a cost of Rs 6 billion.
It will be the nerve centre to maintain law and order in Hyderabad and other parts of the state by real time monitoring of the situation through 900,000 CCTV cameras linked to the Centre. The Centre has the ability to monitor 100,000 cameras at a time.
⦿ It also has multi-agency and multi-department coordination Centre to help in dealing with a natural disaster or any other big crisis, including fire.
⦿ It has a Technology Fusion Tower with back up facilities for various police units like She Teams (for women protection), Cyber Cell, Narcotics and Drugs cell.
⦿ The command centre also has Disaster Management facility linking various agencies.
⦿ The facade of the building has solar panels to meet half of the energy requirement of the facility.
⦿ The roof of the building has a helipad for any emergency need.
⦿ No wood was used in construction of the environment friendly building. Glass facade was meant to use natural light to the maximum extent.
⦿ 35% of the land area of the project was used for plantation and greenery.
⦿ It has a gym, yoga centre, wellness centre, museum showcasing the history of the state police, starting with the Hyderabad Police founded by the Nizams of Hyderabad 150 years ago.
⦿ The project was the brain child of the state director general of police K Mahinder Reddy, who initiated it as then Hyderabad Police Commissioner about 5 years ago.
“The system of Chicago police has formed the base of this project”, he added. “The vision could be realised because of the generous backing of the Chief Minister and the entire state government”.
Apart from USA, state police officials also visited Singapore to get inputs for designing this project.
The project has five interconnected towers with façade covered by solar panels which would meet almost 50% of the electricity needs of the facility.
Hyderabad City Police Commissioner CV Anand said that the 20-storeyed Tower A will have the offices of the commissionerate, while 15-storeyed Tower B will be Technology Fusion Tower and with backups for various wings including Dial-100 facilities for the people to seek police help, She Teams (responsible for the security of women), Cyber Cell (dealing with the cyber crimes), Narcotics Cell and an incubation Centre.
Tower C will have an auditorium and Tower D a media and training Centre.
The nerve centre, however, would be the Tower E from where the situation in the city of more than 10 million population would be monitored on a real time basis through the massive network of CCTV cameras and enable police to quickly respond to any developing situation or the crime.
The facility will also have artificial intelligence, data analytics and social media units.
Hyderabad has already earned the sobriquet of “Most Surveilled City” in the world thanks to half a million-odd CCTV cameras on almost every road, street, markets and residential colonies. This massive security set-up added with face recognition technology has attracted the criticism of civil rights activists and organisation as “intrusive” and a violation of the right to privacy of the citizens.
It has glass facades to put the natural light to the maximum extent and reduce the use of electricity. In its construction, recycled material instead of wood was used, the commissioner said.