The state government has decided to reinstall CCTV cameras in its buses for the security of the passengers after it emerged that most of those installed earlier are now defunct.

Over 500 government buses on different routes, covering the city and its adjoining areas, have been identified for the first phase of installation of CCTV cameras, senior transport department officials said.

All of them now run without CCTV cameras, they said.

“At the end of a round trip, the pen drives attached to the cameras in buses would be pulled out and the footage downloaded for storage. We have contacted engineers from Webel to provide technological support for reinstalling the CCTV cameras in buses,” a senior transport department official said.

A separate server will store the footage of the CCTV cameras. Police and the transport department will have access to the server.

The initial plan is to store footage from over 500 buses for three days.

An official said the footage may also be retrieved
and examined at a passenger’s request.

The pen drives will be collected from different bus depots across the city and transported to the storage server at the West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC) headquarters on RN Mukherjee Road.

Three years after the 2013 gang rape on a bus in Delhi, the state government had installed CCTV cameras in over 600 buses to ensure the safety of passengers.

Over the years the cameras either developed snags or the software was not updated, senior officials said.

A year ago, the state government decided to switch to a more advanced form of surveillance — panic buttons fitted with GPS trackers were installed in buses.

A control-and-command centre was set up near
the police headquarters at Lalbazar. Transport department officials and their
counterparts in the police monitor SOS calls from panic buttons and ensure prompt
intervention

“In the majority of cases, it turned out that panic buttons were being pressed for fun. While the control-and-command centre will continue to function, we want a back-up with CCTV cameras installed in buses and the footage stored,” the transport department official said.

The state government has recently acquired a fleet of 40 CNG buses with inbuilt CCTVs.