Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
The sale of surveillance and security equipment have witnessed an upward trend with rise of safety concern following the terrorist attack on an upscale Gulshan café that killed 20 hostages, most of them were foreigners.
Market sources said people’s fear of crime boosted demands for surveillance and security gadgets like CCTV cameras, metal detector, scanning and alarm system, access control and swipe cards, pushing up their sales.
“Sale of security equipment has increased significantly due to ongoing security concern in the minds of people,” Md Mahbubur Rahman, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Credible Technology Ltd, an importer of security devices, told The New Nation yesterday.
According to him, private offices, corporate groups, banks, restaurants, house owners and other commercial complexes in the city’s posh areas are the major buyers of surveillance and security gadgets.
“We are dealing with branded products. But sale of branded products is yet to be increased because the commercial and residential customers are mainly buying low cost non-brand products available in the Stadium Market,” said Mahbubur Rahman.
“Such surveillance and security products are not effective in producing authentic footage when a crime was committed,” he added. When asked, he said, we are getting many queries every day, but not getting buying orders in line with the queries. Vendors at the Gulistan’s Stadium Market said the demand for surveillance and security products have increased by 40-50 per cent on a yearly basis in the past two years. But in the past two to three months, they have seen more than 100 per cent rise in demand for security devices and machines.
“Everyone wants to install CCTVs and other surveillance systems in their surroundings after the terror attacks in the country, boosting our daily business turnover,” a vendor at Stadium Market, who used to sell non-brand security products, told The New Nation yesterday.
“We mainly sell low cost non-brand products as demands for such products are higher than branded products,” he noted. “Safety measures have always been high in the priority list of our company like many other corporate groups in the city. We have already installed high-tech surveillance and security devices at our corporate office considering the security threat,” Abdus Salam Murshedy, Managing Director of Envoy Group, told The New Nation yesterday.
