KARACHI: Approving funds for the toll plaza surveillance project, the Sindh cabinet on Thursday directed the chief secretary to immediately hire a consultant and award the contract of installation of automatic number plate recognition cameras (ANPRC) at all the entry and exit points in the province.

The decision was taken in the meeting of the cabinet, presided over by Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah. The cabinet sanctioned Rs1.56 billion for the project, which is aimed at enhancing security at entry points to the province through the installation of high-definition CCTV cameras on 40 toll plazas with centralised monitoring and alert system for blacklisted vehicles and criminals.

The cabinet was told that high-definition CCTV cameras would capture images of the registration number plates of vehicles and front seat passengers. The images captured will be transmitted to the central monitoring control room at Central Police Office (CPO) in Karachi in real-time. The cameras will read characters on number plates to identify vehicles and face recognition features will identify the passengers.

The cabinet was told that the project would help in prevention and detection of crimes by identifying vehicles linked to criminal/illegal activities. It would also detect and prevent terrorist activities by providing early warning of suspicious vehicles entering Karachi.

CS told to award contract for installation of number plate recognition cameras within a month

The project would also have the capacity to identify suspects associated with a particular vehicle by using facial recognition features and tracking their movement.

Reward money

Home Secretary Saeed Mangnijo told the cabinet that a committee headed by a DIG consolidated proposals for bounty on criminals based on the nature of their crimes and the number of FIRs against them.

He added that the provincial police chief had reviewed the project and endorsed it and sent it to the home department.

The cabinet was told that once the criminal was arrested or killed, the police department moved a note for the claim of the announced reward, and the approved amount is released for disbursement.

The home secretary said that recently it was identified that while the reward was mentioned in the policy, there was, however, no cap placed on the maximum amount.

Giving an example, the home secretary said that Rs20m cash reward was recommended on the arrest of a criminal of district Ghotki who was involved in one murder and one kidnapping case; whereas just Rs10m reward was recommended for the arrest of criminal of district Shikarpur involved in 29 murder cases.

Taking cognizance of the severity of offenses/ heinous crimes and in due consideration of the principles of fairness and justice, the chief minister proposed to place a cap on cash reward for cases where head money for heinous criminals has to be paid. This proposal will cover the lacunae in the available policy.

The home department proposed that cash reward should be capped at Rs10m maximum and the cabinet approved it after discussion.

The cabinet was informed that due to floods in Sindh in July-August, 2022, many ongoing schemes were severely affected; therefore, Rs87 billion from the provincial annual development programme was diverted for relief and rehabilitation of flood-damaged infrastructure works.

The cabinet was told that the size of the ADP was revised from Rs332.16bn to Rs267.65bn as on March 31.

Mangrove projects

Forest Minister Taimur Talpur told the cabinet that the forest department was implementing two mangrove projects — Delta Blue Carbon-I (DBC-I) and Delta Blue Carbon-II (DBC-II) in the Indus Delta.

He added that under DBC-I about 3.1 MtCO2e had been sequestered and traded with the help of partners, whereas planting operations under DBC-II were approved in 2019 by the cabinet and had commenced from 2023.

He informed the cabinet that the climate change ministry had in 2021 announced the Revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) pledging that 15pc of the carbon credits generated in the country would be a voluntary contribution towards NDCs. In all about 240 MTCO2e annually constitute about 15pc.

The forest minister said that provincial government did not agree to this claim and objected through the letters, wherein, it was requested that the DBC-I and DBC-II project be implemented prior to the commitments made under NDCs as the corresponding adjustments which were less than one per cent of the pledged 240 MTCO2e from these projects thus, these may be exempted from contribution towards NDCs.

On the proposal of the forest minister, the cabinet decided to approach the federal ministry for climate change to exempt the carbon credits generated by both DBC-I and DBC-II projects from corresponding adjustments towards NDC till lifetime or at least till the year 2043 to fulfil the legal obligations.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2023