John Wilbert & Rabindranath Biswas
Port Blair, Nov 06: The G B Pant Hospital is said to be the only referral hospital of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the centre point of Andaman’s Health Department, but it is surprising to note that most of the CCTV cameras installed in the premier institution are not working. Some sources from the Hospital said that the cameras had not been functioning “for a long time” and that petty thefts and people misbehaving with staff have increased over the years. The CCTVs had been installed on the campus about eleven years ago during the year 2013.
“However, many cameras became defunct within months of the installation,” said a source.
Taking full advantage of this situation, some miscreants are committing theft in the campus by mostly targeting attendants and escaping with their mobile phones and other belongings, as disclosed by the hospital staffs.
Over the last couple of years, there have been several complaints from attendants that they lost their mobile phones, important documents and other personal belongings from the hospital campus. The victims registered complaints of these cases at Aberdeen Police Station but because of non-functional CCTV, the police have each time faced problems as the defunct CCTV captured no footage and as a result investigation and many cases were delayed.
After a police complaint and during investigation it was learnt that most of the CCTV Cameras are not working in G B Pant Hospital. In this case the police could not arrest the suspect just because there was no proper CCTV footage to establish the theft by the suspect. This is a matter of serious concern that the GB Pant Hospital where,the government is spending huge amounts of money every year, CCTV cameras are not maintained professionally, the general public regretted.
When contacted, the Medical Superintendent Dr. Uday Sankar, said: “We are aware about the matter, we have 95 Cameras in GB Pant Hospital Campus and many of them are non-functional and we repaired them, but later these CCTV cameras again developed snag after few days, were left non-functional. After a thorough survey, it was proven these cameras are unserviceable.”
The MS further said that he has moved a file to APWD for an estimate for installation of the CCTV cameras and once the estimate gets the necessary approval from the Administration, within one month new CCTV installation work will be started.
