18 hours Ago
Almost 32,000 CCTV cameras across the Capital, or roughly 12% of the total, are not functional, the Public Works Department (PWD) informed the Delhi Legislative Assembly in response to a query posed on Wednesday. Until February 28, PWD installed 264,613 cameras in two phases—against the 280,000 sanctioned by the former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government between August 2018 and September 2019—PWD deputy secretary MK Nikhil said in his reply. “Till February 28, 2025, around 264,613 cameras have been installed in the city out of which 1,40,000 cameras were installed in phase 1 and 1,24,613 units have been installed in phase 2,” the department said in its reply, adding that 13,299 cameras from the first phase 18,692 units from the second phase were dysfunctional, totalling 31,991.
Ghonda, Kirari and Mustafabad assembly constituencies have the majority of non-operational cameras, it further said. The former AAP government, on August 10, 2018 and September 8, 2019, sanctioned installation of around 4,000 cameras for each of the 70 assembly areas in two phases under its “Delhi’s City Surveillance CCTV project”. However, the number of cameras installed varies across constituencies, ranging from just 981 in East Delhi’s Vishwas Nagar to 4,694 in New Delhi assembly constituency.
The geographical distribution of constituencies with the most defunct cameras shows that Ghonda has 27.6% (1,107 out of 4,000 installed) non-operational cameras, followed by Kirari with 25.7% (1,034 of 4,017), Mustafabad 20.
6% (778 of 3,769), Trinagar 20% (764 of 3,812) RK Puram 19.35% (777 of 4,014) and Delhi Cantonment with 18.4% (750 of 4,070) The cameras that are lying defunct after being installed in the second phase are being worked upon, the department said.
The newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has decided to carry out a comprehensive audit of CCTV cameras installed by PWD during the previous regime. PWD minister Parvesh Verma recently said in the Delhi Assembly that a probe will also be conducted to ascertain why CCTV cameras were not installed in eight BJP constituencies when the AAP was in power. According to an August 2021 Forbes India report, Delhi has the highest density of CCTV cameras across the world, with 1,826 cameras per square mile.
It is followed by London (1,138 cameras per square mile), Chennai (609 cameras per square mile) and Shenzen (520 cameras per square mile). Mumbai has only 157 cameras per square mile. Under the City Surveillance CCTV project, a network of high-resolution, night vision, full HD CCTV cameras with recording facilities have been installed in streets, public spaces, residential colonies and schools.
“The system is decentralised and allows remote monitoring by police, PWD, RWAs and market associations through secure connections,” a PWD official said..
