Mumbai, March 25: Maharashtra will install CCTV cameras in government schools from the forthcoming academic year to prevent incidents of sexual harassment, said state's School Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad on Friday.

"In the coming academic year, Maharashtra government will try to install CCTV cameras in all government schools of the state to prevent the incidents of Sexual harassment of girls," Gaikwad said in a reply to a question raised by several Opposition MLAs in Maharashtra Legislative Assembly about safety and security of girls in schools.

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She also informed the House that the state has over 65,000 government schools and over 1,000 of them already have functional CCTV cameras.

"For the rest of the government schools, we have taken a policy decision to install cameras in the coming academic year, with the work already having commenced," the state minister said.

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"We will see how we can get more funds for this scheme. We will utilise funds from MLA Local Area Development, MP LAD, and CSR," she added.

In April 2016, a government order was issued to install CCTV cameras in all private schools. On this, the state minister assured that the government will ensure that the direction is enforced.

Gaikwad also assured that the CCTV cameras will be installed in schools on priority.

"First the schools with a larger number of students will get CCTV cameras. Then, we will move towards schools with a lesser number of students. However, we will try to install cameras in all schools by the next academic year," she said.

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