Gurugram, December 30: In a move to ensure maximum safety and transparency in enforcing traffic rules in the city, Gurugram Police has come up with an innovative idea to equip 250 traffic personnel with body-worn cameras by March next year. The initiative was successfully trialled for two years, and now all 40 police stations across the city will get a camera each to use while patrolling their respective areas.

A senior police official stated that these body-worm cameras have been imported from the United Kingdom and have a two-inch front-facing rotatable camera with wide-view lens. These cameras are attached on the policemen’s uniform and capture both video and audio. Indian Railways Sanction Rs 3,700 Crore to Set Up CCTV Cameras; Plan to Cover 8,244 Stations and 58,276 Passenger Coaches!

According to the senior official, with the help of these cameras, the traffic police department would be able to record the entire exchange between a traffic official and an offender, leading to transparency. Also, as the data is encrypted, so it can’t be deleted.

With 50 such cameras already in use by the city traffic police, a strength of 200 more cameras would enhance the safety and transparency aspect of the city. The traffic police department claim that the body-worn camera has an internal storage of 32 GB and the footage could be transferred to a hard drive each week so that there is a complete backup of each camera.

Stating the reason for these cameras, Commissioner of Police KK Rao said. As reported by The Hindustan Times, “It was seen in the past that offenders had alleged bribery charges against the officials when they had asked to stop after caught driving without seat belt, or being on call while driving or jumping a red light. People used to abuse them and often claimed they were framed as there was no evidence.”

Weighing just 150 grams, these cameras will be circulated to 250 traffic police personnel on duty and 80 others officers from police stations, including the station house officers. Rao stated that 50 traffic personnel underwent a week’s training this year before using these cameras and as per to the initiative, they (personnel) would have to fix it to their uniforms during their eight-hour shift.

Claiming good results, the Gurugram police penalised 1,17,202 motorists and collected ₹23.40 crore from traffic violators in 2018.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 30, 2018 07:29 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).