KOLKATA: After Durga Puja, violation of traffic signals or speeding at 115 crossings will lead to a citation, even if there are no policemen in sight.
With Kolkata traffic police set to install 230 automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras in all major intersections in the city before the Puja, it hopes to curb traffic violations — particularly in the early morning, mid-afternoon and late night.
The system will enable creation of a hot list to be tracked whenever the notified vehicle is on the move and warn policemen on surveillance.
Also number plates of stolen cars can be fed into the system for auto detection.
Such cameras are already installed on the Maa flyover and lead to traffic challans being generated automatically when cars violate the speed limit.
They are also installed at Esplanade crossing, Hare Street-Strand Road crossing, Shyambazar five-point crossing, Howrah Bridge, College Street-M G Road crossing, Moulali-Lenin Sarani crossing, S N Banerjee-Rafi Ahmed kidwai Road crossing, AJC Bose Road-Camac street crossing, James Long Sarani and Ashoka Cinema Hall-DH Road crossing, Alipore Road and Chetla Central Road crossing.
Altogether, Rs 6 crore will be spent on the gadgets.
This will also take the traffic CCTV count to 1,850.
The project that had been pending since February due to the elections was approved on Friday and will be executed before Durga Puja.
“We had called a tender for 75 crossings that got stalled.
We are now asking for such cameras at 40 additional crossings,” said an officer.
The ANPR system serves four purposes — increase public confidence, increase the number of detected offences (both criminal and traffic related), reduce the occurrence of incidents, and reduces road traffic casualties.
Police have already floated tenders and the bidders are likely to place their initial bids by the first week of July.
The ANPR server will be capable of detecting vehicle type and colour, will be capable of license plate recognition and “no helmet” detection for motor bikes and will give 85 percent accuracy in the day and 65 percent at night, said police sources.
DC (Traffic) Arijit Sinha said the move is part of traffic cops to integrated policing.
“The ANPRs will help us in tracking down vehicles faster.
The older cameras needed some modernization.
This will also help us cover a wider area,” said Sinha.
Among the 115 proposed places where the Automatic Number Plate Recognition System (ANPR) cameras are Tea Board crossing on Brabourne Road, Strand Road and Auckland Road, GC Avenue and Bentinck Street, Chitpore Police station crossing, J M Avenue-Beadon Street crossing, C R Avenue and Muktaram Babu Street crossing, Little Russel Street and Middleton Street, Ripon Street-Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road, Maa Flyover, AJC Bose flyover near Camac Street crossing, Ballygunge Circular Road-Chakraberia Road, PC Connector-Kohinoor Market, PC Connector-Gobinda Khatik Road and Theatre Road-Loudon Street crossing.