Tracking Criminals: MHA wants more time to to link databases

The MHA sources said they were in touch with various stakeholders for an update on the status of implementation of the CCTNS project, following which the matter will be placed before the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) to seek additional time. They added that even though the Cabinet did not clear an extension for the project earlier, an extension will be sought again, but no request for new funds will be made.

The Cabinet had recently struck down a request for an extension as the government wanted to review the project before approval. In the 2015-16 Union Budget, presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, no funds were allocated for the CCTNS project.

Approved at a cost of Rs 2,000 crore in 2009,  the CCTNS entails seamless connectivity between 14,000 police stations across the country.

It is a system to facilitate collection, storage, retrieval, analysis, transfer and sharing of data and information between police stations or police departments of different states or with the Central government, including the IB, CBI and Central police organisations.

More than 21,000 locations were to be connected through CCTNS, providing a ready database for law enforcement agencies to access criminal records. This system is meant to aid efforts to track down criminals on the run.

The National Crime Records Bureau, followed by the setting up of State Crime Records Bureaus, was the first step towards storage, sharing and accessing data, but it remained technologically primitive and cumbersome.