On its way to adopting the latest technology, the Madurai City Police launched the crime and criminal tracking network system (CCTNS) in Madurai on Friday.
During the event, Inspector General and Commissioner of Police Sanjay Mathur said that under the Central and TN government’s initiative, the ambitious project had been launched with an aim to improve efficiency and also for better transparency in the functioning of the police. For investigation officers, the CCTNS should come in handy as it not only helps share information nation-wide, but also stores information about criminals.
For instance, in the event of any occurrence, the investigation officer would get a fair idea in understanding the modus operandi and the data available with the CCTNS would be of immense help in fixing the criminal at a faster pace.
The data digitisation of three stations namely Teppakulam, Tallakulam and Thideer Nagar in Madurai City would be taken up in the first phase. In about six months time from now, the data relating to 10 years from all the 17 stations in the city would be uploaded in the system.
The centralised server, which would be connected to a State server in Chennai would have links to the national server, Mr. Sanjay Mathur informed and hoped it would enhance the productivity of every personnel.
Explaining the features, Deputy Commissioner of Police (law and order) R. Thirunavukarasu said that the CCTNS could store more details about criminals and the modus operandi adopted by them. Earlier, police stations would have albums of criminals which may be circulated within the city or neighbouring cities, but with the updated CCTNS technology, it gives a national reach.
DCP (crime) Jayalakshmi, who has been instrumental in giving an impetus to the new system, said that the software had provisions to share data within district/state and national levels.
There are also provisions to store details about missing persons, confessions of criminals, the recovery done by police, the crime pattern of the criminals, the sections registered against them et al. To put it in simple terms, the CCTNS would be a ready reference guide for the investigation team.
Project Manager Vijaya Bharathi, whose firm had been assigned with the work of implementing the new system, said that – CIPRUS (Common Integrated Police Record Updation System) is a modified version with a number of user friendly applications in the CCTNS. It helps in easy identification of criminals and facilitates in collection, storage and retrieval of data. The CIPRUS has three modules namely – Registration module, Investigation module and Prosecution module. From registering the FIR in the station level to the next stage of filing charge sheet and the court proceedings could be stored in a comprehensive manner.
The investigation officer and the team of police personnel investigating a crime would have individual login identity and the user ID would be unique. Senior police officers would have access to view the progress in cases at different stages.
According to a press release, under the 11 five year plan, out of the Rs. 2000 crore earmarked for CCTNS, Tamil Nadu police got a share of Rs. 103 crore towards this project, with a Rs. 10 crore contribution from the State government.
With a total fund of Rs. 113 crore, all the 1,492 police stations in the State would have online connectivity soon. Tiruvallur district was the first to get all particulars stored online, when the CCTNS project was launched last year.
