Punjab Police rolls out `Go-Live’ initiative to track crimes and criminals digitally

Chandigarh, February 13: Punjab Police on Monday rolled out the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) project for tracking of crimes and criminals. Notably, the CCTN `Go-Live’ roll-out has set the stage for the state to go paperless in terms of FIRs and General Diaries, which will now be updated online by the police officials.

 

The Punjab Police taking a leap in strengthening its capabilities to meet the contemporary law and order challenges, with Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh rolling out the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) project for tracking of crimes and criminals.

The basic objectives of the project include improving quality of investigation and prosecution, linking crimes with criminals and vice versa, providing vital crime intelligence, providing better services to the citizens and simplifying maintenance of records at Police Station level.

Congratulating the state police for the initiative, CM Amarinder Singh pointed out that with the move, Punjab has joined the ranks of the few states in the country to roll it out. While 13-year-old data including FIRs and General Diaries have already been digitized as part of this project, all future data will be uploaded live from now on.

Lauding the police for the initiative, CM Amarinder Singh exhorted them to make effective use of the repository of valuable information that will be available through this project. He also stressed on the need to enhance IT proficiency at all levels to make use of such projects.

The Chief Minister further urged all police officials at the police station and supervisory levels to work on the project, while directing the department to suitably reward successes achieved through CCTNS project, which has been linked with Saanjh to provide citizen services in a more effective manner by automating manual processes.

The project, which now covers 600 locations, including 400 Police Stations and higher offices from Sub-Division to State level, currently has a database of 13 years (2005 to 2017) for about 7.6 Lakh FIRs and total 29 Lakh records of different investigation related forms, which can be searched and retrieved from the database online.

The database is all set to expand with every passing day due to the registration of FIRs, important developments in investigations and disposal of cases by courts. The STF data is also expected to be added by the end of the month.

The police stations are connected through 512 KB connections, which are proposed to be upgraded to an optical fibre by June-July this year at a cost of Rs. 26 crores, of which Rs 12 crore has already been released, the DGP informed the Chief Minister. Of the Rs 47 crore sanctioned by the Centre, a sum of Rs. 22.64 crore has been spent so far on the project, according to the DGP.

All the locations have been provided computer hardware and software and are digitally connected for regular updation of the database. All the FIRs are being registered and all General Diary entries being made on a computer under CCTNS project and are part of state-level database maintained at State Data Center, which is in turn connected to a national data center. In addition, the record of the last 10 years has been digitized.

Entries in the database are made primarily by Police Stations and database is accessible to Police Stations and higher offices. Any Police officer at Police Station level or supervisory level can access this database for searches/query for any crime or criminal or for linking crime with criminal and vice versa. Crime trends can be analyzed and counter strategies can be evolved. Supervisory officers can monitor cases registered, progress of investigation and prosecution.

However, in near future, the CCTNS project is proposed to be expanded by linking it with different databases being maintained by the Government. Going a step further, hand-held devices (Tablets) will be given to all field officers to enable data entry from anywhere, particularly from field locations. Development of mobile and web-based Apps for investigating officers and supervisory officers is also high on the agenda.