Project Safety: Unblinking eyes and a police booth provide reassurance to Kalakshetra Colony residents

Under “Project Safety’, readers can write in to downtownfeedback@thehindu.co.in about any functional police booth that has benefited their neighbourhood in chennai

The police booth serving areas represented by Kalakshetra Colony Welfare Association (KCWA) stares one in the face. Installed on a major connecting junction (Beach Road, Tiger Varadhachari Road and Arundale Beach Third Street), it is like a teacher perched on an elevated platform that affords a view extending to the last bench. Apart from the physical vantage point, its watchfulness is enhanced digitally. A screen inside the booth displays feeds from 36 surveillance cameras installed across all junctions of Kalakshetra Colony.

“Last year, KCWA planned and executed the CCTV installation project in collaboration with J6 Thiruvanmiyur police,” reveals Ramesh Sundararajan, an executive committee member of KCWA. “The J6 police pitched in with a cache of cameras that were with them, and KCWA added a chunk of new cameras to the initiative.”

Ramesh observes the CCTV cameras also feed the images to a monitoring screen at the J6 police station.

The police booth on the afore-described Beach Road has a dedicated personnel who monitors the images streaming in from various parts of the neighbourhood. Ramesh notes these images would throw an additional searchlight on activities behind parked cars (cars not belonging to residents) on the streets. The patrol team also combs the streets for those using the parked vehicles as cover to open the bottle and slip away untraced, leaving behind empty liquor bottles.

Ramesh observes Kalakshetra Colony has a sizeable senior population and having unblinking eyes at night (by way of the surveillance cameras) is a reassurance. So are the glimpses of khaki at night by way of patrolling and the booth.

He points out that with the help of CCTV surveillance, a bike theft and lifting of a water-motor, in two separate incidents, were cracked.

Residents of Ranga Reddy Garden in Neelankarai have a feeling of satisfaction about the police booth in their locality, one used by law and order police personnel of the J8 Neelankarai police station.