A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Himachal Pradesh Police and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mandi in the presence of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur here on Friday to set up an institutional mechanism to facilitate the Police Personal in updating their knowledge.
The Chief Minister also inaugurated the Himachal Pradesh CCTV Surveillance Matrix and Command Centre at State Police Headquarters which had been established in a record time of 65 days despite Covid-19 pandemic.
"The objective of the MoU was to facilitate the police personnel to update their knowledge about new technologies, geographical and temporal analysis of crime and public order, prediction of period crime trends, traffic management, e-challaning, beat patrolling system, threat and security analysis, cybercrime, cyber forensics and cyber security," hakur said, adding that the collaboration would be based on research and development activities and capacity building which would involve police officers, IIT faculty, researchers and students.
He said that it would also offer exposure to IIT students about police functioning and internships at various units of Himachal Pradesh Police, adding that this would also facilitate interaction of students with police officers to enhance exposure to ideas of crime trends, detection, prediction, analytics and learning about technological matters. Thakur said that this would also update the knowledge of police officers particularly of Investigation Officers on technological advancement and its application in practical policing. The collaboration will provide improvement in police working especially with respect to systems, protocols, technologies and training imparted at Police Training Centre, Daroh and other units in Himachal Pradesh Police, he added.
The Chief Minister said that this CCTV Surveillance Matrix system would work on the principle of ‘Stopping crime before it starts’ by integrating all its components. He said that the aim of this system was to focus on predicting crimes, offenders, perpetrators, victims, places and time.
He said at present there were over 19,300 CCTV cameras installed all over the State and these were very helpful in prevention and detection of crime, investigations, traffic management, manpower optimization and improving efficiency in police service delivery.
He said that keeping in view the about 70 lakh population of the State ideally 68,000 cameras were required to be installed all over the State. He said that the State Government would consider installing these cameras in a phased manner.
Urban Development Minister Suresh Bhardwaj, Education Minister Govind Thakur, Chief Secretary Anil Khachi and Director General of Police Sanjay Kundu also spoke on the occasion.