In a move to enhance the passenger safety, the Indian railways has planned to install CCTV cameras in all 74,000 passenger coaches and 15,000 locomotives. Even though the railways has not given a timeline for this large-scale installation, it said that each coach will have 4 dome-type CCTV cameras (2 in each entrance way) and each locomotive will have 6 CCTVs. Within the locomotive, there will be a camera at the front, rear and on both sides of the loco.
The decision for the widespread use of CCTVs came after the transporter saw a positive outcome during its trial runs in coaches of the Northern railway network.
On Saturday, the Union railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and minister of state for railways Ravneet Singh Bittu reviewed the progress of CCTV trials following which the decision was taken to cover the entire network of passenger coaches.
The railways is planing to install CCTV cameras with latest specifications, which can also take high-quality footage in journeys where the trains are running at over 100 km per hour speed, and even in low-light conditions. The railways will also explore the use of artificial intelligence (AI) on the data captured by the CCTV cameras, in collaboration with the IndiaAI mission.
“Miscreants and organised gangs take advantage of gullible passengers. With cameras, such incidents will significantly reduce. To preserve privacy of passengers, CCTV cameras will be installed in the common movement area near the doors,” railways ministry said in a statement.