Other Finalists - Green IT Projects : Uttarakhand Police : Kumbh Mela Surveillance

With over 20 million devotees at the Kumbh Mela this year, the state

authorities faced a daunting task in managing them. This coupled with ensuring

that religious sentiments do not get hurt, the task becomes even more

challenging in nature. Fearing incidents like stampedes that can happen in such

huge gatherings, the state authorities felt the need to incorporate the latest

technologies as a helping hand for achieving security objectives. Techno- logies

that would help in crowd and traffic management, at the same time monitor all

related threats from anti-social elements, were sought to be deployed. To

overcome these challenges, it was decided to incorporate surveillance systems in

four cities where there is the maximum inflow of devotees.

Four critical locations, Rishikesh, Haridwar, Muni Ki Reti and Neelkanth were

chosen, and IP Surveillance Systems over a secure wireless network were

installed. The whole network spanned over 30 kms, over an undulating terrain.

During the site survey for the project, it was observed that the terrain was

highly irregular & due to its hilly nature, line of sight for establishing a

wireless network was not available between the designated surveillance points

and the command & control center. Also, frequent power cuts in the region posed

a setback for successful functioning of the system. To counter these issues,

repeater stations were installed at Mansa Devi hill & the height of the poles

were increased to obtain Line of Sight wireless connectivity. UPS were provided

at camera level & were mounted on weather proof casings to beat the power cuts.

The project was scheduled to be completed in a matter of 45 days, and HCL

completed the project 5 days prior to the scheduled completion date. Once the

systems were installed, tested and handed over to the police, training sessions

were also conducted so that the entire security system & the project became

operational without hiccups. The centralized monitoring of the region spread

over 30 kms was done from the Command & Control Center established at Hardwar

and connected with wireless networks to other locations. This offered real time

remote monitoring which aided in informed decision making for crowd and traffic

control.

This surveillance system has provided complete information on crowd and

vehicular movement to State authorities. The traffic department authorities have

also benefited by these surveillance systems since they offer real time

information on vehicle movements, crowded zones & traffic jams, which allows

them to route traffic through alternate routes thus avoiding chaos & undue

delays in vehicle movement. This has resulted in controlled crowd movements

which avoided chaos & panic, thus being able to offer a peaceful religious

experience to all pilgrims.