Lahore safe city cameras went offline, after a spat between Chinese company and project administration. There are 4000 cameras across the city of Lahore covering all corners of the city, are now non-operational.
On the other hand, safe city authority is not happy with the issue, and it has been decided to send a notice to the Chinese company operating the cameras. The disagreement comes over the issue of non-payment of Rs1 billion, which is due on authorities. Moreover, 300 more cameras went offline on Thursday.
Safe city project had been initiated during the rule of previous government to protect the city against terrorism and street crimes. The CCTV are also integrated and mechanized to start the e-challan system, which would also come to halt after the shutdown.
However, the Safe City Authority is considering taking action against the company. The company maintained that company will be responsible, if ‘anything’ happens in the city. The authority is also concerned about the security repercussions after extreme move from the company.
Must Read : Islamabad Ranked Safest City in Pakistan
One official of the authority said, “Presently, the PSCA is starved of funds despite approval by the chief minister to allocate Rs1.49 billion through supplementary grant,”
Safe city authority operates over 8000 cameras, from which half of them are now offline.
The authority had been established under the Punjab Safe Cities Ordinance 2015, which is an autonomous Government body tasked to improve the security situation of the provincial capital. Moreover, the structure has been used to initiate the e-challan system of the Punjab government.
However, the authority is in controversy after the tussle between Punjab Police and bureaucracy after bureaucracy moved to bring the PSCA under home department .
