SHILLONG, JUN 30: Meghalaya will restructure its Integrated Command and Control Centre under a single director or CEO to tighten coordination among departments and extend its network to towns like Tura, Jowai, Ri Bhoi and Nongstoin, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said on Tuesday.  Speaking after a review with the ICCC team, Sangma said multiple departments are already using the facility. 

“The police department, the IT department, the urban affairs department, the municipal and different departments are working together and the ICCC has been very helpful for almost all the departments that are working in the ICCC but our objectives is to see on how we can further improve the functioning the ICCC and making it more effective,” he said.  

The move follows his recent visit to Hyderabad’s ICCC, which he said demonstrated how deep integration can improve public service delivery. 

“I was quite impress to see the kind of set up that they have and more importantly the kind of system that they have created to ensure the utility of the ICCC is at the highest level,” Sangma said.  He pointed to Telangana’s use of drones linked to the ICCC feed and remote public-address systems for on-ground instructions.

 “Whether it is the connection and coordination between the drones that they have and connecting those drones to the ICCC feed, whether it is the different microphones and the speakers that they have where they can give direct order sitting in the ICCC to that particular police point where they would like to give the message through the speaker out there – that kind of a micro management is being to be done in a state like Telangana.”  

Citing emergency response as a key takeaway, he said cameras there capture accidents in real time and trigger health alerts. 

“Whether it is incidents that are happening and immediately while the accident is happening the camera is noting and capturing that data and sending it to the health department and the health department send it to the closest hospital and within minutes even before the person’s call the ambulance reach the location. These are the kinds of benefits we can get,” he said.  

To replicate that, the meeting agreed on a unified structure to end siloed functioning. “In order to make ICCC more productive in the long run we may need to create a kind of a unified command where a director or CEO can be in-charge and coordinate the efforts between the different departments that are there and based on that we went ahead with the decision to create a proper system which will allow the integration of the different departments,” Sangma said.  Expansion beyond Shillong is also on the cards.

 “Figure out how we can improve and expand the reach of the ICCC from just happening in Shillong and to different parts of the state. For example, we would like to see the connections from here being made into major towns like Jowai and Tura, Ri Bhoi and Nongstoin and other critical locations that are there and having our cameras and mechanisms of inputs from these locations.” 

 He noted that police have already benefited from the system. 

“The police especially was very proactive and infact the ICCC in the last few months has really help police solved many cases. They have mentioned about how the recordings in these CCTVs has helped them resolves so many issues and crack so many cases.”