Noida News: The Authority is currently trying smart poles, which have cameras and a public address system for communicating with a control centre as well as an SOS box for people to use in case of emergency. The initiative must overcome the difficulty of getting people to know how to utilise and where to locate them.
According to a previous TOI investigation, the 80 SOS boxes set up throughout the city are still generally underutilised as a result of a lack of awareness. There are emergency roadside help boxes that people can access, but there are no signs directing people where to find or how to use them.
The safe city project now calls for the installation of 650 smart poles at a cost of about Rs 100 crore by the Noida Authority.
Shashi Chowk currently has only one standing. According to officials, in addition to SOS boxes, the smart poles also include designer lighting, CCTV cameras, pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras, and a public address system to improve security and monitoring.
Smart poles will connect to a recently constructed control room for which city employees have installed optical fibre wires. The smart poles will be installed next to schools, hospitals, markets, and industrial regions, according to officials, after the trial is a success.
The Noida Authority had previously placed SOS boxes along major thoroughfares, shopping centres, and metro stations, notably the Sector 52 metro station.
A seller working close to the metro station, Ram Swaroop, claimed, “I have never seen anyone using the box. Some children tried to fiddle with it initially, but they also became scared of getting caught and left.”
Similar to this, SOS boxes located next to metro stations are rarely utilised. Examples include the Botanical Garden, Rajnigandha Chowk, Hajipur Circle, and Shashi Chowk.
The speaker and camera-equipped units are all connected to Sector 94’s integrated command and control centre. Any distress calls made via the boxes would be answered right away by officials stationed at the centre. However, according to officials, there haven’t been many of these calls, which they blame on ignorance.
DCP (traffic) Preeti Yadav from Noida said, “We will soon start an awareness drive in Noida where we will educate commuters, as well as shop owners and street vendors, to use the SOS boxes so they know how to call during an emergency. Once people become aware of the boxes, their usage will increase too.”
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