‘Third eye’ to monitor vehicles, criminals on National Highway-44

Taking a significant step towards road safety and crime control, Haryana DGP Shatrurjeet Kapur on Saturday inaugurated 128 CCTV cameras installed at 19 locations on the National Highway-44 from Ambala border to Kundli border in Sonepat from the CCTV control room in Karnal.

Now, all vehicles passing through this highway will be under a strict watch of the Haryana Police and challans will be issued automatically to drivers violating traffic rules. This CCTV control room has been set up at the office of the Additional Director General of Police, Traffic and Highways.

Kapur said the Haryana Police had started this step with an aim to reduce road accidents and ensure compliance with traffic rules. Of these 128, automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras had been installed at nine places and surveillance cameras at 10. He added ANPR cameras had been linked to the police's Intelligent Traffic Management System so that the complete history of the vehicles could be obtained.

The DGP said 72 ANPR, 38 surveillance and 18 evidence cameras had been installed on NH-44. These cameras were equipped with the state-of-the-art technology as alerts about vehicles involved in criminal activities, stolen vehicles, etc. would automatically reach the control room through the cameras. The details would be sent to the police stations as per the requirement. Kapur said such cameras had been installed in 10 districts -- Yamunanagar, Kurukshetra, Karnal, Ambala, Panipat, Rohtak, Panchkula, Gurugram, Faridabad and Sonipat. Apart from this, challans are issued through drones in Gurugram district to ensure compliance with traffic rules.

The DGP claimed there had been a drop of 657 cases of road accidents in 2024 as compared to 2023. Besides, 279 fewer people died and 432 fewer people were injured in road accidents in 2024 compared to 2023. A decrease has also been seen in the cases of fatal road accidents, which have decreased from 4,652 in 2023 to 4,389 this year, which is 5.65 per cent less than the previous year.

Kapur appealed to the general public to cooperate in making the roads safe by driving the vehicles within the prescribed speed limit.