Arun Kumar
Additional Director General of Police,
Crime and Law & Order, Government of Uttar Pradesh
Arun Kumar provides us with his view on the implementation of CCTNS in Uttar Pradesh
What kind of progress has the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems(CCTNS) Project made in Uttar Pradesh?
CCTNS, an e-Governance project of the Central Government, is being implemented all across the country. In Uttar Pradesh we have started the process of implementation of this project. We are currently at Phase 1 of the implementation process, which is also known as the Pilot Testing Phase. The pilot phase involves a capacity building of the manpower through a basic IT course, so that they are able to use the core application software that has been developed for the basic functioning of the police. We are providing them with training for networking, trouble shooting and other necessary areas. We are also conducting various workshops for change management in different police departments.
Along with the implementation of new technologies and the training the personnel, the work of digitisation of the police records must also be going on under the CCTNS project. Please shed some light on that.
I was coming to that. The second major component is the digitisation of the entire police records. We have taken up the digitisation of last ten years of police records. This work is now progressing at a healthy pace. The third major component is the customisation of software. The software for CCTNS has been developed by the Government of India, but at the State level we are customising the software and adding some new modules to it. The hardware implementation is also being looked after adequately. As Uttar Pradesh is a large stage, we have divided the CCTNS project into four different phases. In the first phase, the work for providing connectivity is going on. The project for connecting the various police stations to the State Data Centre has been given to BSNL. The State Data Centre is already functioning and hence the police stations in the Phase 1 area are getting connectivity. Very soon we expect the connectivity to be in place and after that our police stations will start working under the new e-Governance system.
The State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) is a vital part of the CCTNS. What is your view of the SCRB functioning in Uttar Pradesh?
Our State Crime Records Bureau is set in similar ways like in most other parts of the country. In the districts we have the Districts Crime Records Bureau. These DCRBs compile the details of the crime happening at the district level and provide the data to the SCRB, from where the data goes to the NCRB, which is the National Crime Records Bureau. The implementation of CCTNS is fully synchronised with the working of SCRB and NCRB.
What is your vision for deployment of new technologies in the police department?
Basically what we are trying to do in the CCTNS project is linked to the police work. The project will be helpful in the conduction of a range of duties that the police department is supposed to fulfil. In this project the common citizens will also have the facility of registering their complaints online. There will be facility for online verification for passports, arms licence, domestic helps, etc. We will have seamless integration with the passport office and other related departments. In the next phase we plan to integrate the other part of the criminal judicial system that has to do with courts; systems like e-Courts will come up. Another area where we are using technology in a big way has to do with human resource management. The State of Uttar Pradesh is home to a huge force of more than 2.5 lakhs. We have given a unique number to each member of the force. The moment any person joins the force, they get a unique number. This unique number is linked to their entire data and it continues to be with them for as long as they are in service. When it comes to crime investigation and forensics, we are trying many new technologies.
These days the newspapers are full of stories about crime being committed against women. What kind of initiatives are you taking to prevent the occurrence of such crimes?
In order to control crimes against women we have come up with the 1090 service, which has been inaugurated by the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. It has been a great success; a number of other states are now trying to replicate the scheme.