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State Government | Maharashtra - India | PID: 189119
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The Maharashtra government has decided to upgrade the entire Crime Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS) project, following complaints of glitches in the system. The State Home Department will present a nearly-50-crore demand in the monsoon session of the Assembly, beginning June 17, for the overhaul of the system. The ?49.73-crore proposal for 2019-20 will be presented in the form of a supplementary demand, senior officials said. “The funds will be used not only for the upgrading of the system, which has not given us the desired results yet, but also for maintaining it,” said a Home Department official.
The project was unveiled in September 2015 to connect all police stations in the State. Since January 1, 2016, several police stations were registering first information reports (FIRs) digitally on the system, making its database retrievable. The government then planned to launch a CCTNS-based citizen portal, but did not do so, said officials.
An internal report of the department had found the system did not result in improvements in detection, conviction rates and collection of evidence. The report had recommended putting in place a task force headed by the Special Inspector General, Cyber, to take corrective steps. The report also recommended some immediate measures for this task force, such as putting in place a database of all accused and FIRs.
“Any police station should be able to watch and obtain in a simple manner (a) linkage between the accused in the FIR filed with information/crimes on the same accused pending in other police stations,” the report said. It also said the system should be made capable of aggregating and categorising registered crimes, and deriving trends even at the district level. Once the trend is identified, the system should be able to raise an alarm over targeted deployment of force in the most vulnerable regions and zones. “While this may be possible in the current set-up, it is not as structured as it is at the Government of India level,” the report said. The CCTNS project’s full potential is not yet tapped, it concluded.
Senior officials said part of the funds would be used to ensure the system is foolproof. There have been complaints of entries being manipulated in the system on some occasions. “We will ensure the system remains transparent and citizens can give critical feedback,” said a senior official.
| Updated on: 04 - Jun - 2019
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