Railways seeks third eye to prevent crime on wheels

Getting proactive

According to a top railways  officer, the ministry has asked its research wing – the Research Designs and Standard Organisations (RDSO) – to work out the modalities so that a wireless camera could be installed at the entry and exit point of a coach.

“The camera, which will have connectivity to guard’s cabin of the train, will, however, not intrude into passengers’ privacy during journey,” the source told Deccan Herald on Monday. The basic purpose behind installing wireless camera is to prevent crime on wheels. And for this, a mechanism is being developed whereby the secret camera would record and transmit images to the guard in his cabin, who, in turn, would alert the nearest station master or the Government Railway Police (GRP)/Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel onduty.

However, the only hitch with the new experiment is the poor quality of images the camera is capturing during night hours. “During the test, we have found that pictures clicked during night hours are of poor quality because of dark or dim light,” said the source. The RDSO has, therefore, decided to seek assistance from IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Kanpur and other agencies to overcome the glitch.