Home Ministry to monitor CCTNS project on weekly basis

After a thorough review, Union Home Secretary R K Singh on November 7 has directed that the Home Ministry and National Crime Records Bureau officials must visit all states and Union Territories to supervise the progress being made in the Rs 2,000 crore project which is running three years behind schedule.

So far, Rs 418.87 crore has been released by the government for various works of CCTNS to all states and UTs.

"Rs 146.81 crore has been utilised by the states and UTs. Overall fund utilisation percentage is 35 per cent," a note prepared by the Home Ministry on November 7 says.

The Home Secretary has directed that a weekly progress report be prepared regarding various activities of CCTNS.

The Ministry has appointed 20 joint secretaries, Registrar General of Census Operation C Chandramouli and another officer as nodal officers for different states and UTs to closely monitoring the progress of CCTNS project for its timely completion by new target of March, 2015.

The CCTNS aims at creating a comprehensive and integrated system for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of policing through adopting of principle of e-Governance and creation of a countrywide networking infrastructure for evolution of IT-enabled-state-of-the-art tracking system around 'investigation of crime and detection of criminals'.

Under the CCTNS project, which was approved in June 2009, approximately 14,000 police stations throughout the country have been proposed to be automated beside 6,000 higher offices in police hierarchy.

The Home Ministry has found that even though System Integrators (SIs) have been appointed many months ago, in most cases there has been little progress on the ground, owing to non-availability of Common Application Software (CAS) and due to certain infrastructural problems.

A checklist has been prepared which would assist the Nodal Officers of the Ministry of Home Affairs while reviewing the progress of the state allotted to them. They are also expected to maintain close contact with the nodal officer of other states and Union Territories.