A high-tech web of surveillance cameras and license-plate readers will feed information to a command center in lower Manhattan as part of the Midtown Security Initiative that Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly unveiled yesterday.

The mayor said the city would use a $24 million federal Homeland Security grant for the project, which mirrors the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative put in place in 2005.

Construction on the Midtown portion, which extends from 30th Street to 60th Street, river to river, is expected to be finished in 2011.

After announcing the plan, Bloomberg accused City Comptroller Bill Thompson, his Democratic rival for re-election, of dragging his feet in approving construction of a new Police Academy in Queens, first reported in yesterday’s Post.

Thompson replied, “Every time the mayor and his people don’t do the jobs that they’re supposed to do, don’t provide the information, attempt to gloss over things, they say it’s politics.”