At fingertips

However, if the Home Ministry has its way, this may well be a thing of the past. A district collector in Bastar or Mokukchung, for instance, will have access to a fingerprint network headquartered in the Capital.

8216;8216;If the police there has picked up a person suspected to be involved in some major crime, and has a previous record, it can be confirmed within minutes. All that needs to be done is to take the person to the district fingerprint workstation, put his hand palm downward in the designated spot and presto, the police will have his entire record and background within seconds,8217;8217; explained an official. This would do away with the need for manually lifting fingerprints and keeping paper records in files.

The proposal was to connect through Metamorpho 8212; a desktop family of workstations 8212; the various districts to the headquarters in state capitals which in turn would be connected to the main centre in Delhi, probably at the National Crime Records Bureau NCRB.

Sources said all states would be allowed to purchase these workstations under the police modernisation programme 8212; the budget for which is Rs 1,000 crore for the Tenth Plan. The Ministry was planning to link the Metamorpho to Polnet Police Network which is likely to start by March next year. Polnet would connect the districts and states to the NCRB in sharing crime records and data.

At present, Home Secretary N. Gopalaswami said, getting crime data from the states and compiling it took a lot of time and the information often came an year late. Since Polnet was going to be started, sources said, hitching the Metamorpho to the platform would make it more convenient and economical.

In fact, the plan was to ultimately use the system for the Multipurpose National Identity Cards project. The aim was to have fingerprints of all citizens and maintain them as part of National Register of Indian Citizens 8212; a project which will run alongside the MNIC project.

Sources said it was not possible to have all information on the MNIC which would be issued to citizens. 8216;8216;Each additional information adds to the cost. The project is anyway worth Rs 5,000 crore. It would include personal details and a personal national identity number,8217;8217; said an official.

The National Register, along with all the details on the MNIC, would also include the individual8217;s finger-biometrics, place of birth and visible identification mark. 8216;8216;Once the fingerprints of all citizens are recorded, prevention of crime would be easier. It is important in the interest of national security,8217;8217; he added.

The government was keen to have the system in place at the earliest. A French company 8212; one of the largest security and arms manufacturer in the world 8212; had organised a presentation of Metamorpho for top Home Ministry officials last week. While the government claimed it was serious in its intent to install the system at the earliest, sources said that the project was too ambitious and Utopian.

8216;8216;The MNIC project has been hanging for more than five years and the cost is spiralling everyday. Even Polnet 8212; a project worth Rs 100 crore which has been given to Bharat Electronics Limited for execution 8212; is posing serious problems with states like Chhattisgarh, UP and Bihar unable to adopt the software. In such a scenario, implementing a system like Metamorpho seems a distant dream,8217;8217; sources added. Keep your fingers crossed.