CCEA approves extending CCTNS deadline to March 2017

NEW DELHI: The deadline for implementation of an ambitious online system, which will help in police verification for issuing passport, among others, was today extended till March 2017 by the government.

The Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs ( CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved the proposal of the Union Home Ministry to extend the deadline for implementation of Crime and Criminals Tracking network and Systems ( CCTNS) project, sources said.

Government is of the view that the CCTNS is going to be a game changer in improving police citizen interface and speed up delivery of public services through police across the country, they said.

A central citizen portal having linkages with state-level citizen websites would be created under the CCTNS which will provide a number of citizen friendly services including police verification for passport verification, reporting a crime including cyber offences, linkage with UIDAI, National Population register and transport database, the sources said.

A list of proclaimed offenders, sex offenders and most wanted criminals will also be published on this citizen portal which will help law enforcing agencies as well as citizens.

The portal will speed up service delivery, bring more transparency and increase convenience to citizens, they said.

The CCEA has also approved operation and maintenance phase for the CCTNS for an additional five years up to March 2022, the sources said.

The total outlay of the project will be Rs 2,000 crore out of which Rs 878 crore has already been released to implementing agencies and the balance will be released during the project implementation period, they said.

This project was sanctioned in 2009 with an outlay of Rs 2,000 crore with the objective of interconnecting about 15,000 police stations and additional 5,000 offices of supervisory police officers across the country and digitisation of data related to FIRs registered, investigated and charge sheeted in all police stations, the sources said.

The project would lead access to crime and criminal related database by investigating officers throughout the country. All police stations in the country will get networked with each other and can exchange information on a need basis, they said.

National-level crime analytics can be done in real time basis which will help policy makers as well as law makers in taking appropriate and timely action, the sources said.

The project will also streamline the criminal justice system by computerising the functioning of police stations, prisons, prosecution directorates, forensic laboratories and also ensuring smooth data exchange among these system as well as e-court systems already functional throughout the country, they said.