Years on, crime tracking project remains off grid

Difficulty in interlinking police stations into a single network and dearth of funds cited for delay in implementation of CCTNS
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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Though Kerala was selected as a pilot state by the National Crime Records Bureau  (NCRB) years ago for implementing the much-touted Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and System (CCTNS), the verification of crime records and criminals is still in its infancy. 
Sources said the difficulty in interlinking all police stations into a single network and dearth of funds have led to the inordinate delay in implementation. The State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) was entrusted with the implementation through a System Integrator (SI). According to an SCRB officer, the digitisation of criminal records is a tedious and cumbersome task. The pile of scattered data has to be connected to a single server and, hence, the delay.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) provides the technical support to the police in its capacity as a System Integrator. As per the information provided on the Kerala Police website, while around 2,35,950 records have been digitised, 7,07,995 records are yet to be computerised. Though the police sources claim the FIR registration process is being done through CCTNS, a large part of the system is yet to be implemented. 


CCTNS is a mission mode project under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of the Central Government. It aims to create a comprehensive and integrated system for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of policing by adopting the principle of e-Governance and creation of a nationwide networking infrastructure for evolution of IT-enabled-state-of-the-art tracking system around ‘Investigation of Crimes and Detection of Criminals’. 

The CCTNS project is expected to create an IT-enabled system enabling a police station to communicate with other police stations across the country directly.  The previous UPA Government had given nod to establish the system across 14,000 police stations in the country. The Rs 2,000-crore project, approved in 2009, spans all the 35 states and Union Territories. It will be connected to over 21,000 locations. Following this, Kerala was selected as a pilot state by NCRB. 


However, the implementation process was caught in a deadlock following practical difficulties and fund shortage, though the then Union Ministry had sanctioned Rs 42 crore for Kerala alone, sources said. Earlier this year, the Centre had also approved a proposal for extension of the project to the judicial system as well.The CCTNS also enables access to records of crimes and criminals available at one police station to any other stations by getting connected through a single communication network. 

Other key advantages of the system are creating facilities to provide public services such as registration of online complaints, ascertaining the status of cases and verification of criminals. Sources said once the system is implemented, it would drastically reduce the time taken for the police to verify the antecedents of a criminal.  The police can access the details of a person to check whether he is involved in criminal cases in any police station in the country. Meanwhile, DGP (SCRB) N Shanker Reddy told Express digitisation is nearing completion and the process would migrate to a server within two months.

“The process is under way and it will go live after two months. So far, 95 per cent of the work has been completed. The legacy records are being digitised and this process is quite complicated. However, the whole system will be implemented shortly as two more months are required to complete the process,” Reddy said. 

Tracking crime
CCTNS is a mission mode project under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of the Central Government
It aims to create a comprehensive and integrated system for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of policing by adopting the principle of e-Governance.
CCTNS intends to create a nationwide networking infrastructure for evolution of IT-enabled state-of-the-art tracking system around ‘Investigation of Crimes and Detection of Criminals’
The project covers 835 police offices in the state

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