Chidambaram calls for completion of CCTNS by 2012

Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram presenting the Khan Bahadur Aziz-Ul Haque Shield to S. Arun Kumar of Kerala Police for Securing 1st Position in the All India Board Exam for Finger Print Expert, at the Silver Jubilee Celebrations of National Crime Record Bureau, in New Delhi on March 11, 2010.

Union Home Minister P Chidambaram today said it was important to stick to the timelines and complete the Crime Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) Project by 2012 as scheduled.

Speaking at a function here to mark the beginning of the Siliver Jubilee celebrations of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), urged domain experts to study the best practices in other countries in the fields of crime criminal database management systems and citizen-centric interfaces and services so that they could be incorporated in the CCTNS project.

He also called for the testing and benchmarking of new cutting-edge web-enabled technologies in the field of fingerprint and palm print identification.

The CCTNS is a flagship project of the Home Ministry and has an outlay of Rs 2000 crore. NCRB has been given the task of rolling out the project.

The project is aimed at creating a national data bank of crime and criminals and their biometric profiles. This database will have a handshake with databases of other agencies of the criminal justice system like courts, jails, immigration and passport authorities. It would later be extended to other national agencies through the NATGRID so that terror and crime could be fought more professionally.

According to an official press release, all the States and Union Territories have signed the memoranda of understanding (MoU) and have created the governance structure and the state designated agency for the project.

Of these, ten States and UTs have already established the State Project Management Consultants (SPMC), while in 15 States and UTs, the process of selection of SPMC is in progress. The first instalment of funds has been released to all States/UTs. Selection process of a Software Development Agency for development of Core Application Software is under progress and technical evaluation of the shortlisted vendors is currently being done, the release said.

Mr Chidambaram gave away, on the occasion, medals and trophies to men and officers of NCRB for their achievements. He also released two books titled "Aparadh Aur Praudyogiki" and " Cyber Aparadh" written by Dr. Nishant Singh, a fingerprint expert of the NCRB.

Minister of State for Home Mullappally Ramachandran and Home Secretary G K Pillai were amongst those present.

NNN