Prasad Patil Speaks
Prasad Patil Chairman – SECONA , Director – MIPL SecurityLink India (SLI): What is the entity called Maha Infotech Pvt. Ltd. (MIPL) and what is its unique selling proposition? Prasad Patil: Maha Infotech Pvt. Ltd. (MIPL) was founded by me and my Co-director, Sudhir Deshpande – almost 18 years ago. MIPL primarily provides IT and security consultancy, and we focus on the application of technology to solve information challenges and mitigate security risks. SLI: Kindly give a brief about some of your flagship projects? Prasad Patil: We have been very fortunate to be involved in some extremely challenging – and hence satisfying – projects, especially in the security domain. We pioneered the concept of safe cities in India with our Nanded Safe City project, which was a true safe city project that happened in 2012 – much before even Mumbai! It involved not only video surveillance but also public address, panic switches, a unified command and control, and a network that was completely owned by the city. The project won several awards in India and internationally. Another very interesting project we designed was the Tank Truck Locking System (TTLS) project for an oil & gas major in India. TTLS involved the application of technology to eliminate instances of adulteration and pilferage in the transportation of fuel from terminals to retail outlets. Several technologies were used in the project such as secured locking, global positioning system (GPS) based vehicle tracking systems (VTS) and a customized application that would generate one time passwords (OTPs) etc. The substance of satisfaction that we achieved during this project was the opportunity to help solve a very real social problem – and a problem that is absolutely unique to India. It was the first time that this technology was applied to the oil & gas transportation sector anywhere in the world! SLI: What are the challenges that, as per you, prevail in Indian Security and Safety market? What are your recommendations? Prasad Patil: The challenges are multi-fold – the first and foremost being the lack of knowledge and skills. This is a genuine challenge and one that is holding back the growth of the industry. The upgradation of knowledge and skills is imperative for any industry to succeed. This can happen only through upskilling across the board, across all the stakeholders of the industry, and all of us regardless of our role have to be involved in it. If an industry is not upskilling, it is slowly killing itself. The government has a role to play here in terms of standards and certifications. It is great that Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has now established standards for surveillance cameras – but it is only the beginning. Eventually we need to have Indian standards for even security installations. Similarly, there must be certifications mandatory for providing security technology services. Very often, those involved in the design and application of security technology projects have little understanding of the technology per se, which leads to project delays, time and cost overruns, and eventually all-round heartburn that affects the growth of the industry. SLI: What is your take on the status of the Government’s 100 smart cities projects as on date? Prasad Patil: The rollout of the smart city program has certainly been tardy. My frank take on the smart cities project is that it is too focused on technology. It is almost as if the technology is the end and not a means to an end. A successful smart city program can be evaluated only by its impact on the quality of life. That has to be the objective and not just spending tons of money on technology that we may not need. Also, there has to be a serious thought to sufficiently customize – or ‘Indianise’ – the technological components. Eventually, every urban or semi-urban, or even rural area would like to smarten itself. They also have to be empowered to do so. According to me SMART is an acronym that signifies Security, Mobility enhancement, Access to needs, Resource conservation and Training. The last part – Training – is the most critical part that can lead to genuine transformation. SLI: Being one of the leading safe city experts, kindly elucidate how far our cities are safe and smart on ground, and what are the delaying factors, if any? Prasad Patil: There is a lot being done on the ground to make our cities safer. Police and city administrations are certainly thinking in the right direction – in fact no government can afford to ignore issues of security and safety. So there is enough sensitization to roll out safe city programs. However, one must not equate a safe city with just installation of thousands of cameras. In addition to video surveillance, we need to use preventive, predictive and perceptive technologies. There is also a tendency to convert safe city programs into IT programs – and that should be clearly avoided. I also fail to understand why Indian cities spend so much money on leased networks, when at a fraction of the amount they can establish their own networks, which are independent, scalable and able to be leveraged by other applications. Citizen engagement is also a continuous and critical task and every smart city program should actively encourage the same to redefine and evolve the deliverables. SLI: What is your take on the safety and security culture in India, how it is important and how can that be built fast to commensurate with the growth of technologies to achieve better results? Prasad Patil: I am sorry to say – but there is no safety and security culture in India. ‘Safety First’ is often only a slogan for many and the mindset is ‘if there are any safety and security rules, they have to be followed by others, not by me.’ The only permanent solution here is to conduct education and awareness programs in our schools and colleges – at least our future generation will be more conscious about keeping themselves…