The Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) has received administrative approval of Rs. 328 mn to establish a third Integrated Command and Control Centre at the Nashik Rural Police headquarters in Adgaon. The facility is intended to strengthen surveillance, emergency coordination and operational management during the 2027 Simhastha Kumbh Mela.

The Nashik-Trimbakeshwar Kumbh Mela Authority (NTKMA) has set March 2027 as the deadline for making the centre operational. It will monitor pilgrim movement, crowd density, traffic flow, security arrangements and emergency situations during the religious congregation, for which authorities estimate that around 120 mn pilgrims may visit Nashik and Trimbakeshwar.

The proposed facility will be the city’s third command centre. The NMC already operates an Integrated Command and Control Centre at its Panchavati divisional office building, which is being upgraded for the Kumbh Mela and monitored by the Nashik Municipal Smart City Development Corporation. A second centre is functioning at the Nashik city police commissionerate.

The expansion is linked to a wider surveillance network being prepared for the event. Around 4,000 CCTV cameras are being installed across Nashik city, while another 1,000 are planned for Trimbakeshwar. Their feeds will be integrated through an optical fibre cable network being laid by the Smart City Corporation and routed to the command centres for round-the-clock monitoring.

The network is intended to give authorities a common operational view of crowd movement and traffic conditions across both locations. It will also support coordination during law-and-order incidents and emergencies involving the police, civic administration, health department, disaster management teams and other agencies. The NTKMA has assigned the Adgaon project to the NMC after it was initially proposed by the rural police administration. Officials said the system would improve traffic regulation, crowd control and response times, particularly on peak bathing days. Its effectiveness will depend on completing the building, fibre network and camera-feed integration before the March 2027 deadline.