As part of the measures to provide better security to passengers, the Kollam railway station got covered by the video surveillance system from Thursday. The system was formally commissioned by the Southern Railway General Manager Deepak Krishan. The central control centre of the system will be at the office of the Railway Protection Force in the station complex.
The system installed is part of the Integrated Security System announced by the Southern Railway for fourteen major railway stations which include Tirunelveli, Dindigul, Thrissur and Arakonam. It has been introduced in the wake of increasing instances of anti-social activities on railway property which affect passenger security.
The surveillance system at the Kollam station, sanctioned under the divisional works programme, has been installed at a cost of Rs. 30 lakh. The system is provided with sixteen day and night dome cameras and five day and night PTZ (pan, tilt and zoom) cameras.
It covers the entire passenger area and parking area of the station. Having facilities to simultaneously view and record, the system has been provided as per the specifications of the Research Design and Standards Organisation of the Indian Railways. It has the facility of storage of video input from all the cameras for a period of seven days.
The system also has the facility to be further networked to be viewed and controlled from Thiruvananthapuram. With its commissioning, the constraint of manual surveillance of all the areas of Kollam station has been eliminated to a considerable extent, railway authorities said.
Security personnel can now view the nook and corners of the station premises from the control room to ensure safety of the passengers and their properties. In the event of any untoward incident, the recordings can be played back and can provide a vital clue for investigation and to also take corrective action to protect the passengers.
