Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today launched the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS), a project to keep digitised records of FIRs and information on crimes and criminals. 

FIRs and General Diaries can now be updated online by police officials on CCTNS 'Go-Live'. They would be provided Tablets for this purpose, an official spokesman said. The chief minister said that Punjab was among the few states in the country to have launched CCTNS.  

Thirteen-year-old data such as FIRs and General Diaries has already been digitised as part of the project and all future data would be uploaded live from now on, the spokesman said.  

The launch was attended by police officials, including Punjab DGP Suresh Arora, DGP-IT&T V K Bhawra, DGP-Intelligence Dinkar Gupta, DGP-Law and Order Hardeep Dhillon, IG (Provisioning) Gurpreet Deo and IG (Crime) Inderbir Singh.  

The chief minister asked the police to make effective use of the repository of valuable information that would be available through CCTNS. He also stressed on the need to enhance IT proficiency at all levels to make use of such projects and asked officials at police station and supervisory levels to work on CCTNS.  

Amarinder Singh directed the department to reward successes achieved through CCTNS, which he said has been linked to 'Saanjh' to provide citizen services in a more effective manner by automating the manual processes.  

The basic objectives of the project includes improving quality of investigation and prosecution, linking crimes with criminals and vice versa. Besides, CCTNs also aims to provide vital crime intelligence, better services to citizens and simplifying maintenance of records at the police station level.  

Of the Rs 47 crore sanctioned by the Centre, a sum of Rs 22.64 crore has been spent so far on the project, DGP Suresh Arora said.  

The project covers 600 locations, including 400 police stations and higher offices from the sub-division to state level.  

It currently has a database of about 7.6 lakh FIRs and a total of 29 lakh records of different investigation related forms of the past 13 years, which can be searched and retrieved from the online database, the spokesman said. PTI