Gurgaon is gradually taking its place on the world map as a future global investment destination. But it would be able to live up to its promise as a Millennium City only if its law and order situation assures safety for its present and future residents. The Gurgaon police is gearing up to meet the security challenges by installing high-tech cameras to monitor the public movement in the city.

The cameras would provide live coverage to the city police. If you find yourself in a distress situation, you will not have to call the police. Only an SMS to a special number will bring in the direly needed help from the police. The installation of the CCTV cameras would start within two weeks.

According to Gurgaon police commissioner Mahendra Lal, the SMS service will start next month. ''We are going to install cameras all over the city including all entry and exit points. We will have the location of our manpower and logistics and hence can work out the shortest possible route to respond to a crisis,'' he claimed.

Illustrating his point, the police commissioner said that in case the police receives an SOS from a girl surrounded by anti-social elements, they can identify the location of the incident on the CCTV screen and rush the nearest PCR van to the spot. He also told that the state government has already allocated a sum of Rs. 1.30 crore for dynamic resource management and work on the project is already in full steam.

The major problem to the law and order situation is posed primarily by a large migrant population. The Gurgaon police has started data mining exercise at all levels. ''We are asking commercial establishments, educational institutions, RWAs, industrial set ups to create a data bank of people, including the service providers. All of them will be asked to install surveillance cameras. They will have the facility to plug on to our system,'' said the police commissioner.

The city police requires 10,000 more personnel and 500 vehicles to meet the emerging security challenges. The government has already sanctioned the establishment of five police stations and more are expected to come up as the city grows.