Confusion over who will pay for maintenance, power has left cameras non-functional in Chief Minister’s constituency

The CCTV cameras project in Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s New Delhi constituency that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government wants to replicate across the city is facing problems of its own, including lack of power supply and maintenance.

Nearly 1,200 cameras were installed by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) using Mr. Kejriwal’s MLA Local Area Development (MLALAD) fund starting from 2015.

In July 2015, a total of 752 cameras at a cost of ₹66.98 lakh were installed, according to official NDMC documents accessed by The Hindu.

This April, the NDMC installed 408 more cameras, which had better configurations than the previous ones, at a cost of ₹89.45 lakh, the documents showed.

Now, with the Delhi government working on a project to install 1.4 lakh cameras around the city, the model of handing over the cameras to local residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) and market associations, as was done in Mr. Kejriwal’s constituency, is under scrutiny. The AAP government wants to replicate what they call the “NDMC model”, while Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal has ordered a committee to formulate a standard operating procedure for CCTV cameras.

For some of the residential colonies covered by the CCTV project in New Delhi, confusion over who will pay for the power supply and maintenance of cameras has led to many cameras falling into disrepair, as was seen during a visit on Tuesday.

Three colonies — two near Gole Market and one in Sarojini Nagar — had a mix of functional and defunct cameras depending on if the local RWA had taken over the operation and maintenance.

Prithvi Raj, president of the managing committee of the Central Government Employees Residential Complex near Gole Market, said, “About six or seven cameras were installed in our colony. They did not give clear footage to begin with and now they are all non-functional.”

No progress

Kamaljeet Singh, of the RBI Colony Sarojini Nagar RWA, said his colony, too, had been given about a dozen cameras around two-and-a-half-years ago.

“None of the cameras are functional as there was no maintenance. We have complained to the NDMC, but there has been no progress,” he said.

The NDMC, on its part, has repeatedly raised issues of power supply and maintenance costs with the Chief Minister’s Office, according to a series of letters accessed by The Hindu.

NDMC letter

On Monday, Mr. Kejriwal shared in a tweet a letter to his adviser, Gopal Mohan, from the NDMC that referenced several reminders sent to him on the issue. In the letter, the engineer concerned said that the PWD had said the Delhi government would pay for power consumed by the 1.4 lakh cameras and that the NDMC had discussed the same rule being extended to the cameras installed by it. However, despite two letters on April 4 and April 27, no reply had been received as on May 10, the letter said.

With the question of who will pay for the power supply remaining unresolved, many of the cameras installed have lost power as RWAs are not paying for it.

When it comes to funds for maintenance, the NDMC received a letter from Mr. Kejriwal’s office on February 12 this year asking it to carry out repair and maintenance of the cameras installed in 2015. In a letter to the New Delhi district authorities on April 27, the NDMC asked whether the provision for using 15% of the MLALAD fund for maintenance should be applied once or every year.

To this, sources said no reply had been received till date, leaving the issue of maintenance of the cameras unresolved.

Mr. Mohan could not be reached for comment.