Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
One had frequently heard the famous dialogue in our Bollywood films, “Kanun ke hath bahut lambe hote hain” (criminals can be tracked down from where ever they are hiding). From film script to see this thing happening in reality there was a long wait. Now criminals who were having an easy option of striking at will and then escaping to other states can soon be tracked down if they happen to trip and commit crime at other places. The Maharashtra Police is readying Crime and Criminal Tracking Network system (CCTNS), part of ambitious national criminal network. State has been chosen for implementation of pilot project and same is being supervised by State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) stated its head, Spl. Inspector General of Police (IGP) Sanjay Verma. By April 2013 the database of criminals should be in place and work is on at war footing.
About 1,033 police stations and 600 supervisory offices of State Police are to be brought under CCTNS loop and project was rolled out in Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Kerala. After observing IT literacy among Maharashtra Police, the government chose State Police for inclusion in the pilot project.
Advantage of CCTNS would help in quick analysis of crime trends and accompanying data about criminals who are known to be part of that crimes. Further status of various crimes would be available at a click of a mouse to help speed-up investigations and avoid groping in dark when inter-state gangs or criminals are involved. The project has potential to help in investigation, detection and also prevention of crimes. During passport and immigration check, verifying the data would be very valuable for investigators. Besides the officer said there will be a citizens portal where people can provide information on crimes and criminals or get the information for updating their knowledge.
Conversion of data of last 10-years with State Police in CCTNS format has started at 24 places in state and soon remaining units would be covered. Wipro has bagged the contract for system integrator for the project for which Rs 100 crore is sanctioned for Maharashtra.
CCTNS footprint would be all over country for a tracking system of criminals in real time, the most critical requirement in present day internal security challenges. Ministry of Home Affairs conceptualised the project after detailed consultation with stakeholders and took-up “Mission Mode Project (MMP)” and would adopt guidelines of National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), it is learnt. The government has sanctioned Rs 2,000 crore in XIth five-year plan for rolling out CCTNS across the country. CCTNS basic aim is to integrate police networks of respective States for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of policing at all levels and especially at the Police Station level through adoption of principles of e-Governance.
CCTNS project has four stages i.e. manpower training, digitization, hardware installation, software installation. More than 50 per cent personnel of city police are computer savy and it would be easy for digitisation of data for Crime and Criminals Information System (CCIS) and Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) whose work has started at Nagpur Police Commissionerate. A special team of Wipro and Nagpur city police are working on the project, informed Deputy Commissioner of Police (Headquarters) Sunil Kolhe.
The police stations and supervisory offices would be connected through BSNL Broadband. Explaining functioning of CCIS, he said, the data stored at one police station would be made available to other police stations and supervisory offices anywhere from India. The ultimate aim is to bring transparency and paperless functioning at police department, the DCP added.
The officer further stated that data of crimes and criminals for the last 10 years would be stored in CCTNS. The information would be stored in unicode standard so that it would be available in various regional languages. Basic data base about criminals and their modus operandi would be available on the citizens portal.
After successful operation in pilot states, the project will be implemented (full fledged) in all 35 States and Union Territories to cover 14,000 Police stations and all 6,000 Higher Police Offices across the country. The CCTNS project will be linked with every police station district police offices, state headquarters, respective State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) and National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
Sources said that for the first one year, one private technical expert would be deployed at each police station to ensure that any errors at operating CCTNS are ironed out at ground level. The system integrator company would be installing the computer machinery at all police stations and look after its maintenance for next five years.
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