The Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) has proposed installing additional closed-circuit television cameras across the city’s municipal wards to strengthen public safety and surveillance. The proposal is under consideration, and further action will be taken after the plan is reviewed, municipal commissioner Alok Kumar Pandey said.

The proposed expansion follows an announcement by Dehradun mayor Saurabh Thapliyal in February that cameras would be installed across all 100 municipal wards in 2026. The announcement was made while marking the completion of the MCD board’s first year under his tenure and linked the surveillance rollout with ward-level development works.

More than 550 CCTV cameras have already been installed at key locations across Dehradun under the Smart City project. The network is monitored through a control room operated at the level of the Information Technology Development Agency (ITDA), with the proposed installation intended to extend coverage to areas beyond the existing locations.

The initiative is part of the civic body’s wider use of technology for urban management. During the past year, the MCD has strengthened monitoring through an Integrated Control and Command Centre, GPS-based tracking of municipal vehicles and a digital grievance redressal system. It has also introduced drone-based waste monitoring and an artificial intelligence-based municipal chatbot called Nigam Saarthi.

The number and locations of the additional cameras will be finalised as the proposal progresses. Pandey said the civic body would consider data privacy and security requirements during the expansion, with safeguards to be followed in the installation and operation of the surveillance network. The final plan is expected to determine how the additional infrastructure is distributed across the wards and integrated with existing monitoring arrangements.