Videonetics Intelligent VMS and unified solution help secure the birthplace of Lord Buddha – ‘Lumbini Park, Nepal’

The story of Buddhism began in Lumbini, where Siddhartha Gautama, the Lord Buddha, was born in 623 B.C. Soon after, the famous garden of Lumbini, became a place of pilgrimage.

Located in the terai plains of Southern Nepal, Lumbini Park comprises of key Buddhist attractions, such as Maya Devi Temple, World Peace Pagoda, Bodhi Tree, single stone Ashoka Pillar erected by Emperor Ashoka, Pond Pushkarini, stupas, monasteries, and more. Till date, this sacred place continues to hold archaeological remains associated with Lord Buddha’s birth.

The Challenge

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Lumbini is one of the four sacred sites that Buddha reportedly advised the disciples to travel to. The park attracts millions of visitors every year from across the globe. This poses a considerable challenge to its management, of safeguarding the pilgrims and protecting the property from vandalism.

Just the sheer size of this park made it tough to conduct effective surveillance of the expanse. Safety of visitors, crowd control and ensuring 24x7 protection at multiple locations, at all times, were some of the key challenges they faced.

24x7 analogue video surveillance used earlier

In the past, officials of Lumbini Park deployed 24x7 analogue video surveillance only at Maya Devi Temple

In the past, officials of Lumbini Park deployed 24x7 analogue video surveillance only at Maya Devi Temple. Additionally, they relied on manual security for the entire property. Using the traditional system was cumbersome for operators, as they had to invest lot of time searching through videos to validate facts or pull contents.

To some extent, security was also compromised by blind spots, such as corners, aisles of garden, cultural and monastic zones, buffer zone, entry-exit points and much more. In light of all the said vulnerabilities, they decided to overhaul their electronic surveillance apparatus and adopt a ‘smart & future-ready unified surveillance solution’ at the park.

Following a detailed analysis and survey, Videonetics worked with stakeholders of Lumbini Park and NexGen IT Solutions Pvt Ltd, in order to design a comprehensive & unified solution encompassing Intelligent VMS (IVMS), Vehicular Analytics and Vehicle Entry-Exit Monitoring (VEEM) application.

Videonetics Intelligent VMS offers smart 24x7 surveillance

At its core, is state-of-the-art and feature-rich Videonetics Intelligent VMS that is extremely intuitive, investigation-friendly and also has a unique multi-layered failover support, that prevents data loss in the event of network instability.

The IVMS is managing 160+ network cameras at all vulnerable locations of this property. The system enables real-time surveillance to keep pilgrims safe, break crowd formation, keep vandalism in check, secure property and ensure swift response to any unwanted situation by ground staff, thereby bolstering efficiencies, enhancing situational awareness and allowing effective incident management, even at times of peak footfall during festivals/events.

In addition, legacy analogue cameras are also integrated into the unified solution, eventually providing centralised control of the cameras to security operators.

Empowering premise security with real-time vehicle data

Stakeholders of Lumbini Park wanted to keep a vigil on vehicles entering, parking, and leaving the premise

Stakeholders of Lumbini Park wanted to keep a vigil on vehicles entering, parking, and leaving the premise. Hence, Vehicular Analytics were deployed at all (entry and exit) gates that automatically identify and detect vehicle, irrespective of its type and in all weather conditions. These vehicles can be searched based on timestamp, colour or vehicle category.

The data helps security team to make informed decisions in managing vehicle flow and speed up responses to road incidents/offences, whenever required.

Safeguarding premises with entry-exit monitoring solution

Videonetics’ Vehicle Entry Exit Monitoring (VEEM) application installed at the primary entry gate, empowers security operators at Lumbini Park to monitor every vehicle entering the property in real time.

This solution accurately tracks and identifies vehicles, as well as captures facial image of the driver. Security operators can tag vehicles based on categorisation, such as blacklisted, suspected, staff, visitor and so on, for future reference.

Enhanced perimeter security

This deployment has further strengthened security at the park, as no unauthorised vehicle can enter the premises. Due to its intuitive GUI, operators are easily monitoring vehicle movements, tagging, processing events, and viewing evidence images – all with a single application interface.

Such an important site for the followers of Buddhism needed to be preserved and secured for generations to come. By keeping miscreants in check and preventing any kind of vandalism or damage, the Videonetics unified solution is helping secure thousands of years of heritage and an indispensable part of history.

Videonetics unified solution

Real-time monitoring allows them to spring into action quickly and prevent any risk to a person

With the Videonetics unified solution, the surveillance personnel operating the Command Control Centre can stay on top of all movements, across the park. The solution has heightened situational awareness of the entire property, enabling the staff to easily collaborate with one another.

Real-time monitoring allows them to spring into action quickly and prevent any risk to a person, and/or the property in time. Most importantly, it has improved tourist experience by making them feel safer under the watchful eyes and allowing themselves to spend peaceful time while exploring the park at leisure.

Delivering a secure and seamless experience to tourists

The solution is helping deliver a secure and seamless experience to tourists. In fact, these elaborate security measures are boosting visitor confidence, encouraging more people to visit and experience Lumbini Park and walk in the footsteps of Lord Buddha.

Raju Pandey, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at NexGen IT Solutions Pvt. Ltd., stated “Working in close partnership with Videonetics, we were able to deliver an upgraded and contemporary surveillance solution to Lumbini Park. Videonetics unified solution has helped the customer to achieve situational awareness, keeping their pilgrims, heritage, and property safe, that was paramount to encourage more visitors at the park.”

Intelligent, cutting-edge unified surveillance solution

Saroj Bhattarai, the Project Manager for Lumbini Development Trust said, “Deploying intelligent, cutting-edge unified surveillance solution by Videonetics has helped us strengthen the security at Lumbini Park. It has equipped our system to keep our visitors safe and protect the heritage site. Moreover, it has also enabled us to analyse ongoing issues and find disruptive solutions to keep this sacred place secure today and tomorrow.”