The schools of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation will soon be under CCTV camera surveillance. The civic body has begun the process to procure CCTV cameras to ensure security of its children, particularly girl students within the school premises.
To begin with, thirty schools will be equipped with the gadgets at the cost of `84 lakh. Tender for the same has been floated and installation of the cameras has to be done within three months. Announcement in this regard was also made in the annual budget for 2013-14. The corporation plans to put all its schools under electronic surveillance through CCTV cameras and bio-metric machines. According to the officials, installation of cameras aims at preventing the incidents of harassment and sexual assault like the one at a Mangolpuri school early this year in which a girl was raped inside the school premises causing much uproar. The North Delhi Municipal Corporation has 788 schools under its jurisdiction with presence of girls in each of them.
The process of procuring these security gadgets was started by the erstwhile MCD, but could not be completed due to trifurcation of the civic body and the following municipal elections.
“The main objective behind installing these equipment is the security of girl students. The cameras will keep a record of any unscrupulous activities in and around the school premises. Installing the CCTV camera will certainly instill a sense of security among the girls,” said a senior official of North Delhi Corporation.
The decision to install CCTV cameras assumes significance in the wake of complaints pertaining to child abuse, sexual harassment and incidents of brutal acts of teachers against the students. “There have been complaints of abuse against schools children. While the initiative will be deterrent against the harassment of girls, boys in the schools will also feel secure against any aggressive act of the teachers,” the official said.
All departments in the Municipal Corporation, except the education department, have installed CCTV cameras and the so the process for the same has been initiated.