Election Commission reviews CCTV coverage in counting centres

Election Commission ensures uninterrupted power supply for CCTV at counting centers, reviews security measures for seamless switching and protection.

The Election Commission of India has instructed the District Election Officers (DEOs) to coordinate with Electricity and Public Works Departments to ensure uninterrupted power supply for CCTV arrangements in the counting centers.

Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo chaired a virtual meeting of DEOs and senior officials and police officers on Thursday. The availability of diesel generators with automatic change over provision in case of power failure, UPS back up for strong room CCTV cameras to ensure seamless switching, stabiliser for CCTV installation were among the issues that were reviewed.

“The DEOs have also been instructed to ensure that measures like surge protector/lightning arrester are installed so that the CCTV cameras do not get affected because of lightning,” an official release said.

All the DEOs / Returning Officers were earlier instructed on to make arrangements for fixing of one additional CCTV camera in front of the door of each ‘strong room’ for viewing CCTV footage enabling the political party agent to view the footage so as to ensure un-interrupted CCTV footage, it said.

A three-tier cordoning system comprising Central and State armed police personnel have been set up with controlled access in all counting centres to prevent any entry of unauthorised persons.