The tragic death of 28-year-old Constable Sharda Dabhi in a hit-and-run accident on Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Riverfront Road on Thursday has raised serious concerns about the city’s surveillance infrastructure.
The incident, which occurred on the city’s busy 11-kilometre Riverfront Road, has uncovered the lack of CCTV coverage along this heavily trafficked route. Despite claims by local authorities that Ahmedabad is under extensive CCTV surveillance and a label of ‘smart city’ given, Riverfront Road remains poorly monitored.
The reality of such claims
Of the 16 junctions along the Riverfront, only three or four are equipped with functional cameras connected to the city’s central control room. The remaining junctions do not have surveillance coverage.
“We submitted a proposal to the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corporation Limited (SRFDCL) over a year ago, requesting coverage for all junctions along the Riverfront. However, after cameras were installed at a few locations, the work was halted for unknown reasons,” said a senior police officer. “We are missing a significant part of the city without surveillance, which is vital for crime prevention and investigation.”
Currently, Ahmedabad has around 2,000 CCTV cameras installed across 130 junctions as part of the Smart City Project. However, critical areas, including Riverfront Road, remain undercovered.
Why delays?
Explaining the delays in expanding surveillance, Dev Chaudhary, Deputy Municipal Commissioner of SRFDCL, stated, “We are not planning to install additional cameras at the moment. Establishing a parallel system with its own control room would require significant resources. The existing Smart City infrastructure should ideally be extended to cover the Riverfront.”
The lack of surveillance on Riverfront Road has made it difficult for police to gather evidence in the investigation into Constable Dabhi’s death. Authorities are currently relying on witness accounts and other available evidence to try to solve the case. However, without crucial video footage, their task remains challenging.
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