The Kolkata police headquarters have instructed traffic guards in the city to ensure billboards erected ahead of Durga Puja do not come in the way of CCTV cameras installed for surveillance.
In a WhatsApp message, all officers were instructed to inspect the feed from CCTV cameras in their areas and intervene if some of them were blocked by the advertisement hoardings erected along the thoroughfares.
The Telegraph reported on Thursday how gigantic hoardings were blocking the buildings behind them and cutting off streetlights and the view of the cameras.
The message to officers has a copy of the report attached to it, sources at Lalbazar said.
Asked about the challenges posed to surveillance by the huge hoardings, police commissioner Vineet Kumar Goyal said on Thursday: “I have asked my officers to look into it.”
Some of the hoardings that have been installed are as tall as three-storey buildings and rise from barely two feet above the kerb, several officers who spoke to this newspaper over the past few days have admitted.
The message to officers, sent in a WhatsApp group, instructs them to check if the cables have been snapped during tree trimming by Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) personnel and take note of the obstructions caused by the billboards across the thoroughfares.
Senior officers across nine divisions of Kolkata police echoed the message from the headquarters to various traffic guards, asking them to run an immediate check.
In the north, officers scanned feeds from CCTV cameras on the stretch between Colootolla and Rajballavpara to find out whether hoardings along the main roads were obstructing views of buildings, streetlights and CCTV cameras.
“There were partial obstructions to the signal posts at two locations — the Colootolla intersection of Central Avenue and the crossing of BB Ganguly Street and Central Avenue. The puja committees that put up the hoardings were told about this and they immediately carried out the necessary changes,” said a senior officer.
In the south, officers intervened where they detected a CCTV camera getting obstructed by bamboo structures.
“Portions of a bamboo scaffolding — meant to support hoardings — which were found to be obstructing a CCTV camera on Rashbehari Avenue were trimmed in the afternoon after we informed the puja organisers concerned,” said a senior officer overseeing traffic movement.
Several motorists driving along the stretch of EM Bypass between the Ultadanga flyover and the Ruby rotary said some of the structures, particularly the billboard towers, were so huge that they came off as major distractions.
“The stretch on the Ruby-bound flank of EM Bypass between Apollo hospital and the Salt Lake stadium is lined with billboards in such a way that it’s hard not to
get distracted,” said Gaurabmoy Chaki, who drives down the stretch.
“One needs to concentrate heavily on this stretch because of the sheer number of vehicles vying for road space during rush hours. It is challenging.”
This Puja, the massive hoardings have come up in places which used to be free of such structures, such as the area around Captain Bheri on EM Bypass and narrow lanes around Esplanade.
“The officers have been asked to run a check by Friday and submit a report so that necessary actions can be initiated in consultation with the Puja organisers,” said
an officer in the southwest division.