CCTNS Digital Police Portal launched to fast-track
Criminal Justice System in the Country
![http://pibphoto.nic.in/documents/rlink/2017/oct/i201710606.jpg](http://pibphoto.nic.in/documents/rlink/2017/oct/i201710606.jpg)
*Deepak Razdan
As crime continues to grow,
and criminals turn tech-savvy, police investigators across States face a tough
challenge to bring the law-breakers to justice.The situation is,however,
undergoing a revolutionary change. The Digital Police Portal launched by the
Government of India as part of the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and
Systems (CCTNS), in August this year, will not only help police sleuths track
the criminals fast, but also help the victims seek redress online.
The total IPC crimes in the
country increased from 28.51 lakh in 2014 to 29.49 lakh 2015. According to the
Union Home Ministry’s latest annual report (2016-17), the share of IPC crimes
to total cognizable crimes in percentage terms was 37.2 per cent in 2011, and
it increased to 40.3 per cent in 2015. The crime rate, which shows the number
of crimes per one lakh population, too increased from 497.9 in 2012 to 581.8 in
2015.
In such a complex scenario,
the Digital Police Portal, with its various features, is expected to be a
game-changer. The CCTNS portal will provide investigators the complete record
history of any criminal from anywhere across the country. Equipped with a
Google-type Advance Search engine and ability to give analytical reports, the
portal is expected to become the backbone of the country’s criminal justice
system. For the State Police organisations and investigating agencies like the
CBI, IB, ED and NIA, the Digital Police Portal provides a National Database of
crime and criminals with facility for 11 searches and 44 reports. This will
improve national security and revolutionise the way police works in the
country.
To citizens, the Digital
Police Portal offers online facility to register FIRs. There will be initially
seven Public Delivery Services in 34 States & UTs, like Person and Address
Verification of employees, tenants, nurses etc; permission for hosting Public
Events, Lost & Found Articles and Vehicle theft. The portal will turn
criminal investigationa completely citizen-friendly affair. The citizens’
reports and requests are forwarded to State and Union Territory Police without
loss of time for follow-up action.
In 2004, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)initiated a project named-
Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) as a component of the
“Modernization of State Police Forces (MPF)” project, aiming at computerization
of crime records in police stations on a stand-alone basis. The need for
setting up of a national database of crime records was realized later, and the
MHA introduced a Central sector project of Crime and Criminal Tracking Network
and Systems (CCTNS) in 2009, with the objective of inter-linking all police
Stations under a common application software for the purpose of investigation,
policy making, data analytics, research and providing Citizen Services.
The project provided the State Police officials with a platform to enter
Crime & Criminal data onto a CCTNS application, which could be accessed any
time through State database at State Data Centre as well as at National
Database at National Data Centre (NDC). The total approved outlay of the CCTNS
project is Rs. 2000 Crore. The Central government provides funds to States and
Union Territories towards hardware, CCTNS software, connectivity, system
integration, data entry of legacy data, project management manpower and
training. The Centre has released to States Rs 1450 crores out of which Rs 1086
crores have been spent by the States and UTs.
At present, the CCTNS
software is deployed at 14284 Police Stations out of the 15398 Police Stations
covered under the scheme. A total of 13775 Police Stations out of 14284 Police
Stations are using this software to enter FIRs 100 per cent. As many as 13439
Police Stations out of the 15398 Police Stations covered by the scheme are
already connected and linked with State & National database of Crime and
Criminal records. The total number of FIRs registered
using CCTNS leapt from less than 1.5 lakhs in March 2014 to about 1.25 crores
before June, 2017, registering a jump of almost 100 times. Thirty-four States and UTs have launched their State Citizen
Service portals with key services such as reporting a crime, request for
verification, permission for events etc. Thirty-five out of 36 States and UTs
are sharing data with National Crime and Criminal database. The system has
seven crore records for crime and criminal data including 2.5 cr FIR records
and legacy data.
The scope of the CCTNS project has been enhanced to integrate the Police
data with other pillars of the criminal justice system namely -- Courts,
Prisons, Prosecution, Forensics and Fingerprints and juvenile homes, and
accordingly a new system -- “Inter-operable Criminal Justice System (ICJS)” has
been developed. The ICJS system has been developed as a dashboard approach with
an advance search facility for the purpose of retrieving the desired data from
the system. The ICJS project is being monitored by a Working Group chaired by a
Supreme Court judge, Mr Justice Madan B. Lokur.
State police organisations
and all investigating agencies have been greatly empowered by the Digital
Police Portal. The portal provides 11 searches and 44 reports based on CCTNS
National database. The advanced search is equipped with high performing search
and analytics engine. The advanced search can be carried out in two ways. In
the first way of search, the search engine will look for full names entered
(for eg. Name and Relative Name) but will get all the records where one or both
of these names exist. In the second way of searching, it also fetches records
with partial matches and returns all the results.
There are various kinds of
filters available on the portal through which data can be sorted and narrowed
down. Search can be carried out through Person Name, Person and Relative Name,
Person and Act/Section, free text search and exact search on FIR Regd. Number/
Mobile Number/Email. The CCTNS portal will provide investigators the complete
record history of any criminal from anywhere across the country.
The software offers
Google-type Advance Search engine and analytical reports. Recently, the software
was used to trace few mentally challenged women from Tamil Nadu in Uttarakhand
and reunited with their families. The CCTNS database will be later linked with
the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) database on vehicle
registrations.
The “Advanced Search” allows
the user to find crime correlations, crime trends, outliers (anomalies) and
crime patterns by having access to CCTNS dashboard.
Since
the launch of the Digital Police Portal, citizens have begun registering
complaints on the portal, and requests have been made for antecedent
verification of persons. The Digital Police Portal is helping the Government in
the efficient delivery of citizen-centric services in a friendly manner, which
is an important responsibility of a modern welfare state today.
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*Deepak Razdan, is a senior journalist and at
present Editorial Consultant, The Statesman, New Delhi.
Views expressed in the
article are author’s personal.