As mishaps haunt Mohali roads, CCTV project hits another hurdle

Mohali: Even as Mohali roads continue to be death traps for commuters – with at least 21 lives, on an average, lost in accidents in every month, the much-awaited closed-circuit television camera project, which was to facilitate automatic number plate recognition and red-light violation detection, has hit another roadblock – the fifth in over three years. Data accessed from the traffic police shows that in the last 10 months, Mohali has seen 377 accidents, in which 210 people lost their lives. The senior police officer, while stating that they were aiming to start e-challaning by June 2024, stated, “This time, we were really hopeful as two companies had cleared the technical bid.” The Punjab Police Housing Corporation technical committee had last month given a go-ahead to open the financial bid after CCTV cameras installed by two companies at Sector 69 Chowk for demo, had cleared the technical evaluation with an accuracy of over 90%. During the first phase of the project, CCTV cameras were to be installed on the stretch from Airport Chowk to Zirakpur road, Chawla Chowk crossing, Phase 3/5 crossing, Max Hospital, Sunny Enclave gate, IISER Chowk, Radha Soami Chowk, PCA stadium crossing, Purab Apartments crossing among others.