Not picture perfect: surveillance teams struggle with ‘inexperienced’ videographers on contract

April 12, 2024 01:05 am | Updated 07:04 am IST

With electioneering heading for the final phase in Tamil Nadu, officials monitoring the process on the ground have been facing new challenges from unprofessional and inexperienced videographers who tag along with them, assisting them in executing their tasks.

After the election was announced, flying squads and static surveillance teams, headed by an officer of the rank of magistrate or assistant engineer or assistant executive engineer, and a video surveillance team, headed by a superintendent or junior engineer, are keeping vigil to track poll code violations and prevent distribution of cash to voters. According to the Election Commission guidelines, the entire proceedings should be video-graphed and reported to the officer concerned in the respective constituency.

An officer who heads the video surveillance team on Wednesday flagged the issue of difficulty in finding a videographer for his team. The videographer who was originally assigned was changed, and they had gone through at least eight videographers in the last few weeks. “Besides, they are sending us school-going students or youngsters who have never touched a camera in their lifetime. So, it is difficult to cover the proceedings”, he said, urging that a professional cameraman be provided to carry out the process efficiently.

Video-graphing the proceedings was outsourced to private players. A sum of ₹800 would be given to a videographer for an eight-hour duty. Sharing an anecdote, an officer said, “One day, we had to follow a prominent candidate who began campaigning on the roads. When we asked our cameraman to start recording, he struggled even to switch on the button. After a while, he blurted out that the camera was not working since the battery was not charged. We quickly called another surveillance team, which fortunately happened to be nearby, and had the process video-graphed. Had anything gone wrong that day, we would have been in trouble.”

Though videographers are to hand over the videos to the team in a CD format the same day, they fail to adhere to the rule. “When we called one of them to submit the videos, he peremptorily said he could not come immediately and asked us to contact another person. They kept on passing the buck, making us anxious...”

Police officials, who are part of the teams, too, lament that inexperienced youths are being assigned the jobs. “They don’t come with their identity cards to the spot. The worst experience was when some of these boys focused [the camera] on a woman inside a car, instead of the dashboard. We have to constantly tell the videographer what they should do,” said an officer.

Sometimes, they keep on nagging the officers to relieve them early. “We had to spend from our pocket on food and refreshment for these videographers,”said the officer.According to a senior official of the Greater Chennai Corporation, a strict warning was issued to the vendor last week when complaints surfaced. “The vendor was instructed not to involve anyone under the age of 18 in this work, and to take complete videos and not just photos.”

She claimed to not have received any concrete information or complaints from Returning Officers in the Chennai District. “Earlier, each district made arrangements for videographic surveillance, but it is centralised system this time, so there could be issues. An inquiry can be conducted with the vendor. If any defaults have been noted, action or fines will be levied after verifying the contract,” the official stated.

(With inputs from Aishwaryaa R.)