Night vision cameras will be at work for surveillance in Seschalam forests

Hyderabad: In view of increased cases of Red Sanders smugglers entering Seshachalam forest during night, the state  government would introduce total e-surveillance including night vision  facility. Around 250 fixed towers and 25 mobile units equipped with night vision cameras will be at work in Seschalam forests.

A network of CCTV cameras have already been installed on a pilot basis in 19 locations in Chittoor and Kadapa districts. According to AP Forest department, the area under Red Sander trees is spread over 5.16 lakh hectares in Tirupati, Kurnool, Kadapa, Chitoor, Prakasham and Guntur districts. “The CCTV camera pilot project was implemented by iVIS company, whe-rein cameras were mo-unted at a height of around 45 feet and vi-deo streaming has be-en done using mobile connectivity,” an official said.

Intrusions noticed during e-surveillance are examined and filtered in the control centre of the company and alerts are sent to the forest department’s quick reaction teams who acted on them. “Due to this  pilot project, intrusions came down from 224 in March last year to 15 by September 2015. Since the pilot project is giving encouraging results, it is now proposed to expand the coverage of e-surveillance to all Red Sanders-bearing forest areas in AP,” said a forest official.

“Customs alert units with pre-recorded audio messages and sirens for alerting the staff will be deployed. A central mentoring station will be set up in Hyderabad at iVIS company,” he said. Around 24 monitoring personnel in three shifts will be present at the  monitoring towers. Around 31 people will be working at the central  monitoring station. The project was estimated to cost around Rs 30.94 crore,” he said.