Even after a strict direction from the Malabar Devaswom Board (MDB) authorities, temples in the Malabar region are lagging behind in the installation of Closed Circuit Television Cameras (CCTVs) to ensure the safety of the movable assets from theft. Though six months have already passed after the MDB direction in this regard to nearly 50 prominent temples, fewer than 10 of them had set up the facility and that too in an unprofessional way.
MDB sources said the administrators of 50 temples out of the 1330 temples governed by the MDB had been asked to install CCTVs taking into account the high flow of people to the temples. The main objective was to prevent the increasing incidents of temple thefts and pick pocketing during festival times, the sources said.
Though a few temples had managed to install the facility following the direction from the MDB, they showed no professionalism in the later phase to monitor the recorded files or appoint someone to watch the live feeds during peak festival times.
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“We had given them clear direction to appoint a person or security man full time to take care of the surveillance system and use it properly for the protection of temple properties. But, no temple administrators were found doing it properly with the expected level of perfection,” said a senior MDB official. He also said that some of the temple administrators were reluctant to adopt new facilities, affecting several development plans.
“Computerisation of temple records and use of e-mail services still remain an alien concept for most of the temple administrators in Malabar,” he said. Calling for the implementation of the surveillance project, anther MDB official said the temple administrators were given full freedom to spend up to Rs.40,000 on the facility. Instead of lamenting over increasing thefts, they should adopt modern mechanisms to protect temple assets, he said.