Now, police case details at click of button

The central government is planning to introduce a citizens' interface that will help people access details about police reports and cases at the click of a button as part of the computerization programme of the police department.

Officials overseeing the Common Integrated Police Application project are of the view that FIRs, details of charge sheets, progress in investigations and reasons for delay should be made available in an e-format to ensure transparency.

"A person who has filed a complaint should be able to know the progress in a investigation and other data whenever and wherever he wants," Sharda Prashad, national coordinator of CIPA, said.

Such a step would bring in an element of transparency and enhance the efficiency of the police machinery as it will enable and empower citizens to keep a tab on the working of personnel at police stations, he said.

"If a person is able to get day-to-day details about the progress in a case, it will improve the performance of the police department and bring some sort of accountability in the system," said Prashad, who is also director of the National Institute of Criminology and Forensic Science.

The ambitious project is still at the conceptual stage and will take a concrete shape in the next few months. It will be ready for implementation once the CIPA project is completed by mid-2009.

However, the form of citizens' interface to be adopted is yet to be decided.

"It could be via the Internet or through kiosks installed at specific locations. We could even think of giving file numbers as passwords on the lines of the inquiry system operated by passport offices and the Indian Railways," Prashad said.

The National Informatics Centre, in association with the Department of Information Technology, will develop the software.

A Rs 800-crore project launched two years ago, CIPA is making satisfactory progress and Delhi has become the first place in the country to automate the maintenance of records and registers at all its 128 police stations.

In other states, 10 per cent of the project has been completed so far and the figure will reach the 40 per cent mark by the end of this fiscal year, he said.

There are plans to computerise operations of around 15,000 police stations across the country to do away with manual record keeping, eliminate duplication and introduce an element of transparency in the working of police forces.