Only 58% digitalisation of crime records achieved across various states

NEW DELHI: Much ado has been made about police verification of taxi drivers possibly being a deterrent for crimes like the Uber Rape case but the inordinate delay in an ambitious government project means that Delhi Police would have probably not known of the rapist cabbie’s criminal history in Uttar Pradesh even if his case had come to them for verification.

The home ministry admitted in Parliament on Tuesday that its ambitious Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System ( CCTNS) to online link all 15,000 police stations in the country was "lagging behind schedule" and the percentage of digitalisation of crime records was still only an abysmal 58% across various states, meaning it will still take a long time for any police station to be linked online to every another in the country.

The home ministry also said that out of the total outlay of Rs 2,000 crore for the CCTNS project, the home ministry has so far released only Rs 806 crore to various states and the states have been able to utilise only Rs 505 crore out of the said funds.

"CCTNS project is currently under implementation stage and real time information sharing between police stations and police headquarters will start once CCTNS is successfully implemented.

This should have happened by 2013 but the project is grossly delayed.

A deadline of end-2015 is more realistic for the starting of the seamless connectivity under CCTNS," a senior home ministry official told ET, adding that the home ministry chaired a meeting with representatives of all states on Wednesday trying to speed up the roll-out of CCTNS across India.

This comes as it has been revealed that the accused driver in the Uber case, Shiv Kumar Yadav, had a long criminal history of crimes like molestation and rape in Mainpuri district of Uttar Pradesh but his records have only become known to the Delhi Police after his arrest and subsequent interrogation and enquiries at his native place in Uttar Pradesh.