The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has given its approval to the proposal of the Ministry of Home Affairs for a major revamp of the Crime and Criminals Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) Project and has decided to implement Integrated Criminal Justice System (ICJS) by integrating CCTNS with E-Courts. E-prisons, Forensics and Prosecution- the key components of the criminal Justice System. This will ensure quick data transfer among different pillars of criminal justice system, which will not only enhance transparency but also reduce processing time. This project is now fully aligned with the vision of the Smart policing and Digital India of the Government of India. Police-Citizen interface will undergo a major shift with the implementation of this project, as a number of services will be enabled through citizen portal.
The Government has decided to fast track the implementation and complete the implementation of the CCTNS project by March 2017 including implementation of ICJS. Major new components included as part of the revamped project are Integrated Criminal Justice System (ICJS), Citizen Portal having interfaces with various e-Governance projects like Aadhaar, National Population Register, Vaahan Project of the Ministry of Surface Transport, National Emergency Response System Project etc.
To keep pace with changing scenario, the cabinet also decided to approve in principle design of next phase of CCTNS Project so that additional functionalities not yet implemented may also be included and police functioning in the country is fully computerized. The total outlay for the project is Rs. 2000 crore, and also includes Operation & Maintenance phase for additional five years up to March 2022.
Crime and Criminals Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) Project will interconnect about 15000 Police Stations and additional 5000 offices of supervisory police officers across the country and digitize data related to FIR registration, investigation and charge sheets in all Police Stations. This would lead to development of a national database of crimes and criminals. In the last one year significant outcomes have been achieved which is evident from the fact that more than 11600 Police Stations in the country are entering 100 percent FIRs through CCTNS software and more than 26 Lakh FIRs have been registered through CCTNS in last one year alone.
The Full implementation of the Project with all the new components would lead to a Central citizen portal having linkages with State level citizen portals that will provide a number of citizen friendly services. These include services like Police Verification for various purposes including passport verification, reporting a crime including cyber-crime and online tracking of the case progress, online reporting of grievances against police officials, accessing Victim Compensation Fund and legal services etc.
The project will enable National level crime analytics to be published at increased frequency, which will help the policy makers as well as lawmakers in taking appropriate and timely action, it will also enable Pan-India criminal/accused name search in the regional language for improved inter-state tracking of criminal movement.