During the current winter session (December 2009) of the Parliament of India it was disclosed that the government of India (GOI) is interconnecting about 14,000 police stations and 6,000 police offices across the country through Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) aimed at crime investigation and detection of criminals. The GOI is also examining the feasibility of connecting hotels and guest houses to the CCTNS system. The bigger question is whether the GOI would be able to do so without a failure and wastage of crores of public money?CCTNS Project has been approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs. It has a financial cushion of Rs.2000 Crores as per the 11th Five Year Plan. The Project would be initiated by the Ministry of Home Affairs and implemented by the National Crime Records Bureau.
The CCTNS project is to be implemented in a manner where the major role would lie with the State Governments in order to bring in the requisite stakes, ownership and commitment, and only certain core components would be in the hands of the Central Government, apart from the required review and monitoring of project implementation on a continuing basis.
The need for such a system was felt after the terror attacks in Mumbai last November, where the slow response time of the security forces and inadequate crisis management capabilities resulted in many casualties and property loss which could have been anticipated and averted.
According to Praveen Dalal, the leading Techno-Legal Expert of India and Managing Partner of Perry4Law, “CCTNS Project is a complicated and time consuming initiative. It must be preceded by suitable “Policy Framework” as well as by adequate “Techno-Legal Training” of the persons going to manage the same”. The stakes are high so must be the training and development standards, said Dalal.
The previous experience of other countries has shown that inadequate planning and training can result in wastage of money and can defeat the purpose of this project. If India wants to succeed it must first acquire the expertise to manage the CCTNS Project before jumping upon this unexplored terrain.
