Uttar Pradesh will be the first state in the country to have 18 safe cities: Chief Minister

Lucknow: Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has emphasized the integral role of public cooperation in ensuring the success of the ‘Safe City Project.’ While reviewing the progress of the ‘Safe City Project’ on Friday, the Chief Minister said that CCTVs should be compulsorily installed in commercial establishments, intersections, government and private hospitals, as well as educational institutions.

“The importance of CCTV in crime control should be explained to common people, businesspeople, and institution operators in order to encourage them to install CCTV cameras,” said the CM.

The Chief Minister stated that although people can keep the data of their CCTV footage safe with them at their convenience, it should be ensured that the footage is only made available to the police when necessary. In addition, Municipal Corporations, the Smart City Project, or local administrations and police will install CCTVs wherever they are needed. The Chief Minister has issued a directive to ensure that all police stations are equipped with CCTV cameras within one week.

During the review meeting, the Chief Minister stated that the “Safe City Project” is proving to be very helpful in achieving the goal of ensuring women’s safety, dignity, and self-reliance. “Through this project in the state, under the Lucknow Police Commissionerate, modern control rooms, pink police booths, Asha Jyoti Kendras, CCTV cameras, help desks for counselors in women’s police stations, panic buttons in buses, and other security measures were implemented. Now we have to expand it further,” said the CM.

The Chief Minister said that the 17 Municipal Corporations and Gautam Budh Nagar are to be developed as “Safe Cities” in the first phase by implementing financial management through convergence and inter-departmental coordination. In the second phase, the municipalities of 57 district headquarters and, in the third phase, 143 municipalities should be linked to the Safe City project. Special branding should also be done by putting a signboard of ‘Safe City’ at the entrance of all such cities. In this way, Uttar Pradesh will be the first state in the country to have the highest number of ‘safe cities.’

He said that at present, the Safe City project is focused on the safety of women. “We should expand it and also link it to the safety of the elderly, children, and divyangjans. Through Safe City, the campaign to create a safe, secure, and empowered environment for women, children, the elderly, and divyangjan people in public places will get the necessary impetus.

During the meeting, Additional Chief Secretaries/Principal Secretaries from relevant departments reported on the ongoing progress of the Safe City project. The Chief Minister was informed that so far the police have identified 9396 places for installation of CCTVs in Agra, Aligarh, Bareilly, Jhansi, Kanpur, Lucknow, Moradabad, Prayagraj, Saharanpur, and Varanasi smart cities, out of which 3489 have been installed with cameras so far. More than 7600 locations in Ayodhya, Gorakhpur, Firozabad, Mathura-Vrindavan, Shahjahanpur, Meerut, and Ghaziabad will have CCTV cameras installed. For this, the process of agency selection is going on.

In the meeting, the Chief Minister also saw a presentation about ‘UP Safe City App’ and gave the necessary guidelines. He also said that once a month, special programs should be organized at the district level for women, children, the elderly, and divyangjans. “Listen to their problems, solve them appropriately. Identify successful women, children, elderly, and the divyanjans and present them as role models. This effort will be inspiring for others.”

The Chief Minister said that to realize the concept of Safe City, verification of drivers of public transport vehicles is necessary. In this case, the drivers of taxis, e-rickshaws, autos, tempos, etc. should be duly police-verified.