KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah approved the signing of an agreement of Rs5.5 billion between the Sindh Police Department and NRTC to launch the first phase of the Smart Safe City project in the Red Zone.
The approval of the agreement was made in a meeting held at CM House and was attended by Home Minister Zia Lanjar, Mayor Karachi Murtaza Wahab, Chief Secretary Syed Asif Hyder Shah, IG Police Riffat Mukhtar Raja, MD NRTC Brigadier Asim Ishaque, DG Sindh Safe Cities Authority Asif Aijaz Shaikh, and others.
The CM was told that the Smart Safe City project would install 1300 CCTV cameras at 300 sites in the Red Zone & Airport Corridor with FR and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) capability within eight hours of solar backup.
To a question, the CM was told that the 193 km OFC network would connect 18 police stations. The cameras would be linked to the Command & Control Centre of CPO and then a permanent C&CC would be developed at KPO.
The Smart Safe City project would have the capability of facial recognition and a number plate recognition system. Under the system, monitoring of hospitals for criminals/suspects, multiple camera tracking against suspects and response, database management of criminals, and integration with National, Criminal, and other databases.
The chief minister said that the project was much-awaited and finally seeing the light of day, and hoped that the project would achieve its purpose.
“I want you NRTC to complete the first phase in one and a half years,” he said. The NRTC had given him two years to complete the first phase.
The safety system is a safeguard of the city through Artificial Intelligence-based digital transformation. The CM said that Karachi has more than 20.38 million population which would increase further by 2030.
Therefore, to control crime and critical incidents, public unrest, disaster management, and traffic safety were his top priorities and their solution lay in technological integration and cybersecurity.
The conceptual framework of the Smart Safe City Karachi includes swift delivery-response and services, digital forensics, and analysis of incidents, situational awareness through one-window operation, real-time monitoring of activities, systematized traffic & crowd examining and monitoring, timely action against untoward incidents, and intelligent data correlations from a database.
Murad Ali Shah termed the launching of the first phase as good news for the people of the City.
Director-General Sindh Safe Cities Authority Asif Aijaz Shaikh and Managing Director NRTC Brig Asim Ishaque signed the agreement in the presence of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, Chief Secretary Asif Hyder Shah, and others.
