Hyderabad has been ranked as 16th in the top 20 most surveilled cities in the world.
With 3 lakh cameras for a population of over one crore or 29.99 cameras per 1,000 people, Hyderabad is the only city from India in the list released by Britain-based tech research firm Comparitech.
Hyderabad and London, which ranks third, are the only cities outside China in the list. With 119.57 cameras for 1,000 people, Taiyuan is at number one position while Wuxi ranks second with 92.14 cameras for 1,000 people. All other ranks are also held by Chinese cities.
London has 6,27,727 cameras for a population of over 93 lakh or 67.47 cameras per 1,000 people.
Telangana Director General of Police M. Mahender Reddy tweeted on Thursday to announce the recognition for Hyderabad. “Congratulations to all stakeholders. Firstly the communities for making the city a safer place to live in,” he tweeted.
As part of efforts to leverage technology for effective policing, Hyderabad has been installing CCTV cameras for the last few years.
The DGP had announced last year 10 lakh CCTV cameras would be installed in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits, covering three police commissionerates of Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda.