The Delhi government has proposed to impose a penalty of ₹16 crore on Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) for its slow pace of installing 1.4 lakh CCTVs at a cost of around ₹320 crore on the streets of Delhi.
The Delhi government said that BEL is legally obliged to instal 1.4 lakh CCTV cameras by November 22, 2019, but has installed only around 16,000 till date.
The CCTV project is a flagship project of the AAP government and it has now decided to instal 1.4 lakh more CCTVs on the streets. The company will be “blacklisted” and “complete 10% penalty” will be imposed, in case of a delay, said the Chief Minister’s Office.
“BEL is under legal obligation to complete the installation of CCTVs within nine months according to its agreement with the Delhi government, and in case it fails to complete the entire installation work within these nine months, it is liable to pay a 10% penalty,” an official statement said.
“Since more than two-thirds of the time given to the BEL is already over, the Delhi government proposes to impose a 5% penalty [₹16 crore] of the overall CCTVs installation project cost [₹320 crore] to begin with,” it said.
The move comes after strong displeasure by the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over the “slow” pace of work.
The Public Work Department (PWD) of Delhi government has already issued a show-cause notice to the BEL over the “slow” installation of CCTV cameras. “PWD has on numerous occasions, written to the BEL and has alerted them time and again to speed up this very important project of women safety and public welfare,” the statement said.
PWD Minister Satyendar Jain and Chief Secretary Vijay Kumar Dev had recently met the Chairman and Managing Director of BEL and conveyed the government’s dissatisfaction over the delay in installation.
“Currently, around 400 CCTVs are being installed everyday. In the meeting, the BEL CMD had informed that all efforts would be made to improve this number to installation of 1,500 CCTVs daily,” the statement read.
