Mohali's Rs77 crore AI cameras catch thousands

Mohali’s new camera network issued 5,78,065 traffic fines in its first year, turning road enforcement into a largely automated system. (indianexpress.com) The project was inaugurated on March 6, 2025, and Mohali police said the system runs through more than 351 artificial intelligence-enabled cameras at 17 key locations, with the total camera count now above 400. (indianexpress.com) Punjab’s Information and Public Relations Department said Phase I cost Rs 21.60 crore and linked 351 high-resolution cameras to an Integrated Command and Control Centre in Sector 79, Mohali. The setup includes 175 Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras, 50 red-light violation cameras, 92 bullet cameras, 18 pan-tilt-zoom cameras, and 16 speed-detection cameras at two locations. (ipr.punjab.gov.in) Automatic Number Plate Recognition works by reading a vehicle’s registration plate from camera footage, then matching it with government vehicle and driver databases to generate an electronic challan. Punjab’s release said Mohali’s system is integrated with the National Informatics Centre’s VAHAN and SARATHI databases. (ipr.punjab.gov.in) The first months were the busiest. Mohali police issued 1,83,825 challans in the first 95 days from March 6 to June 9, 2025, or about 1,935 a day, and April 2025 was the peak month at 58,697 challans. (indianexpress.com) The pace eased later in the year. September 2025 was the lowest month at 33,928 challans, and March 2026 closed at 42,378, which Indian Express reported was 22.20% below March 2025. (indianexpress.com) Mohali had already been moving toward camera-based enforcement before the launch. In March 2025, The Tribune reported the system had been in development since February 2024, missed deadlines in September and November 2024 and January 2025, and was introduced as officials tried to cut traffic violations and accidents. (tribuneindia.com) The Tribune also reported 312 deaths in 536 road accidents in Mohali in 2024, giving the government a road-safety case for tighter monitoring at major junctions. (tribuneindia.com) Officials have presented the system as both a traffic and policing tool. The Punjab government said the network is meant to support public safety, traffic management, and law enforcement through round-the-clock surveillance and automated detection. (ipr.punjab.gov.in) Privacy concerns sit alongside that expansion. Legal and rights analysis published by the Oxford Human Rights Hub said India’s growing use of artificial intelligence surveillance has outpaced clear legal safeguards, raising questions about transparency, discrimination, and limits on police data collection. (ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk) So Mohali’s first-year tally is not just a traffic number. It is an early test of whether a city can use automated enforcement at scale, keep violations down after the first shock of fines, and answer questions about how long all that footage and vehicle data should be kept. (indianexpress.com)