THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Administration has given nod for Rs 68 lakhs as the expense to collect CCTV visuals from the secretariat as demanded by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). NIA asked General Administration Department for CCTV footage from June 2019 to June 2020. The fund has been granted for expenses including the purchase of 400 TB hard disk to collect the visuals.

The General Administration Department said the permission to buy hard disks was granted a few days back. An order inviting global tenders regarding this will be issued soon. The NIA asked for CCTV visuals to check whether the gold smuggling case accused Swapna Suresh and Sarith came to the secretariat.

The measures were initiated towards copying over the visuals, the hindrance was the unavailability of a hard disk to store data of huge size. Though initially there was a thought to buy hard disks from abroad, it was scrapped and a decision to call a global tender was taken. The tenders will be invited by the PWD electronics section. Visuals collected by 83 CCTV camera over 14 months are stored in a server.