Calling it a move that shows “India’s resolve to join the world community in a collective crusade against terror” following the Paris terror attacks, the Government cleared Wednesday a proposal to revamp the Crime and Criminals Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) project and integrate it with e-courts, e-prisons, forensics and prosecution to ensure prompt data transfer among different wings of the criminal justice system. The government also set a March 2017 deadline for implementation of the Rs 2,000-crore project. "In the immediate aftermath of what has happened in Paris and India’s resolve to join the world community in a collective crusade against terror and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reiteration to this effect at the G20 summit, I think we are one of the first nations to make an important announcement. We will fast-track the CCTNS that has been going on in this country for quite some time,” Minister of State Jitendra Singh told reporters after a Cabinet meeting. Watch Video (app users click here) [related-post] Launched in 2009 during the UPA rule, the CCTNS project started with the objective of interconnecting 15,000 police stations and 5,000 offices of supervisory police officers across the country and digitization of data related to FIRs registered, investigated and chargesheeted in all police stations. This was aimed at developing a national database of crimes and criminals. "In the last one year, significant outcomes have been achieved which is evident from the fact that more than 11,600 police stations in the country are entering 100 per cent FIRs through the CCTNS software and more than 26 lakh FIRs have been registered through CCTNS in the last one year," the government said. Once fully implemented, the CCTNS, with all new components, will lead to a central citizen portal with linkages to state-level citizen portals that will provide citizen-friendly services like police verification for various purposes including passport verification, reporting a crime including cybercrime, online tracking of case progress, online reporting of grievances against police officers, accessing the victim compensation fund, and legal services. The project also targets to streamline the criminal justice system by computerizing functioning of police stations, prisons, prosecution directorates, forensic laboratories and ensuring smooth data exchange among these systems as well as e-court system already functional throughout the country. Such integration is expected to reduce processing time within the different pillars of the criminal justice system — police stations, prisons, prosecution directorates and e-courts. The list of proclaimed offenders, sex offenders, most wanted criminals will also be published on this citizen portal which will help law enforcing agencies as well as citizens.
