In wake of Paris attacks, Modi government says crime tracking network by March 2017

NEW DELHI: Two central ministers tried to blame the UPA govt for going slow on the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) project and claimed that the Narendra Modi government had fixed a deadline of March 2017 for the project following the Paris attacks.

“A deadline of March 2017 has been fixed now for CCTNS project. Our government felt this important project from the security point of view was not going ahead at the pace it should. The Cabinet has approved the move right after the Paris attacks,” Minister for State in PMO, Jitendra Singh along with Power Minister Piyush Goyal, said at a media briefing after Cabinet met. “The project was sanctioned in 2009,” Goel added, to highlight how the project to link all 15,000 police stations in the country was delayed.

However, bureaucrats who have handled the project termed the claims as ‘rich,’ saying the Union Budget for 2015-16 made zero allocation for CCTNS, forcing the home ministry to make a desperate pitch for its revival. A proposal for it had been pending for nearly four months now. “The present MHA proposal was for extension of implementing CCTNS by March 2017, under existing outlay of Rs 2,000 crore and incorporate new features like a citizen portal and linking it with e-courts scheme,” a senior official said. In a reply in Parliament earlier, the MHA attributed the delays in CCTNS to certain states failing to select state system integrators and delaying handing over of the sites.