KARACHI, April 10: Video surveillance of the city by the police is likely to start this month, as the relevant authorities have approved a company's bid for the project to install cameras across the metropolis for round-the-clock monitoring of movement at almost all important locations, it emerged on Sunday.

“The LoI (letter of intent) has been issued to the Getronics outlining an agreement between the two sides before the agreement is finalised over the next few days,” said a source privy to the process. “The company offered the bid with Rs689.649 million as an estimated cost of the project that was evaluated and hence approved after due consideration and meeting all required checks.”

He said the final agreement between the Sindh police and the company was expected to be signed within the next few days after which work would start on installation of cameras across the city in line with the designed project that was originally envisaged in 2009 but could not be materialised on multiple grounds.

“According to the project design, a total of 486 locations have been marked across the city where multiple cameras would be installed,” he said, citing blueprint of the project called “video security surveillance system”.

In the first phase, he said, more than 900 surveillance cameras would be installed at 174 locations — mostly within the limits of the south zone police — that had been identified as sensitive and vulnerable pockets across the city.The Sindh police in July 2010 had relaunched the video surveillance system project — slashing its estimated cost by half — which was scrapped two months ago after being processed for more than a year. While Rs1 billion meant for the security cameras project was spent on buying vehicles for the police force during the last financial year, the project had now been relaunched at an estimated cost of Rs500 million.

The authorities in May 2010 cancelled the previous tender of the project issued in April 2009 after shortlisting three companies for the final bidding. Officials argued that a study was conducted into the mechanism adopted for tenders and they arrived at the conclusion that the companies which were barred from the final phase could challenge the whole process in court on valid grounds.

Sindh police officials said the department in the first phase had scanned 174 locations — mainly foreign missions, consulates and important government buildings — as sensitive and vulnerable pockets across the metropolis for video surveillance.

“Currently funding available for the video security surveillance system does not allow the police authorities to go for all the 486 locations across the city identified as sensitive and demand round-the-clock watch by law-enforcers,” said a senior official.

However, he said, it was an integrated system that had a capability to add more cameras for the surveillance in other areas later on. The surveillance system in the two zones was expected to follow, he added.

“The video security surveillance system would further enhance the police monitoring system, as the department recently took over the operations of 200 cameras installed across the city under the e-policing project of the provincial ministry of information technology,” he added.

He said the cameras under the e-policing project were primarily meant for traffic management but it would also be effective in regular policing, keeping an eye on suspicious movements.