Common Integrated Police Application Project was launched by the Ministry of Home Affairs, for Police Department with a view to reduce manual records/register maintenance at Police Stations. It eliminates duplication and inconsistency in record keeping and facilitates maintenance of details of criminals.
The most striking feature of the CIPA system developed by NIC is that it will instantly make available digitised data pertaining to all aspects of policing to officers at various levels. The system will ensure higher levels of transparency in police functioning, as the officers will have round-the-clock access to details and developments in investigations. That would not only mean better follow-up and watertight scrutiny of cases but will also instil confidence among the general public.
Objectives: • Significant reduction in manual records/ register maintenance at Police Stations. • Elimination of duplicate and inconsistent record keeping. • Facilitate maintenance of the details of criminals. • Keep track of the Status of Cases. • Introduce element of transparency in the working of Police. • Facilitate Investigating Officer with availability of Records. • Facilitate supervision by the Senior Officers. • Generate various reports required from time to time. • Faster Response to Public. • Open Source software tools for Rollout at Police Stations. • Ownership of Application with Government for continuous support.
Background Availability of relevant and timely information is of utmost necessity in conduct of business by Police, particularly in investigation of crime and detection of criminals. Police organisations everywhere have been handling a large amount of such Information and huge volume of records. ICT can play a very vital role in improving the functioning of the Police organizations, by facilitating easy recording, retrieval and analysis of the pile of information. Quick and timely information availability about different facets of Police functions to the right functionaries can bring in a sea change both in crime/criminal handling and related operations, as well as administrative processes.
Criminals too, in today’s world have become techno savvy; they make maximum use of all the modern technologies and methods in committing crimes. This has facilitated them in operating easily over the length and breadth of the country. For effectively meeting out challenges of crime control and maintenance of public order, creation of databases on crimes and criminals in digital form, cannot be neglected anymore. So, all the States need to be at par in the use of IT, especially for crime, record maintenance and criminal related functions. This requires that the efforts that are put in for police modernisation should focus on information gathering, organising and its dissemination among various Police organisations to give an edge over the criminals.
There is a need to re-look at the philosophy of data collection at a central level. It has to be tied up with the automation of the processes at the primary sources of Data Generation. Once the primary source of data viz. the Police Stations, are automated, the derived data required at different levels e.g. District, State and Central, will automatically flow.
The Framework The framework for ‘Induction of IT in Police’ has been built around ‘Investigation of Crime and Detection of Criminals’ to start with, as this happens to be the primary function of police. The present attempt is to build an infrastructure and mechanism to provide the basis for evolution of Crime & Criminal Information System based on CrPC. This infrastructure would be uniform across the country.
The nature of interaction among various levels of police functionaries within the framework of CIPA may be as follows: • A majority of Crime and Criminal Information originates from the police station level with the registration of cases of various offences, search and seizure of properties, arrests of accused during the investigation, etc. Police stations also gather information by regular surveillance of known/suspected criminals, and from the law and order point of view, in their respective area. Such information from all the police stations within a district will be accumulated at the District headquarters, for possible sharing by other police stations and other investigation agencies. • The information that needs to be shared by all the police stations in the State e.g. Missing Persons, Stolen Vehicles, unidentified dead bodies, criminal dossiers etc., including the Information required for monitoring purposes by the higher levels, flows from police stations to districts to state headquarters. This information would be accumulated and broadcast back upto the police station level. • The above information, if relevant, is also transmitted to NCRB and made available to the Public through a Web-based Citizen Interface on Internet. • The databases that are created for applications developed and implemented by other departments, e.g. Registered Vehicles, Driving Licenses, Passports and Foreign Nationals visiting India, would be accessible to all the concerned levels of police functionaries through the State headquarters.
The Developments The Ministry of Home Affairs initiated the project in the year 2004 with formation of a Sub-Group consisting of senior police officers from five different states, Dr. B K Gairola, DDG NIC and Sh. Sharda Prasad, Director, LNJN NICFS. The Sub-Group defined the scope, and identified the functionalities for the proposed CIPA Software, which was to be developed keeping in view the provisions of CrPC and had to function at the police stations.
A Technical Committee consisting of officers from NIC, NCRB, and Delhi Police prepared a System Requirement Specification (SRS) for the project that was approved by the Sub-Group and vetted by the Empowerment Committee constituted by the Ministry of Home Affairs. It was also decided that the Pilot implementation would be carried out in Delhi.
Software Functionalities • Registration: This module facilitate the Duty Officers (DO) in registering a case by capturing the details of the complainant, accused, properties stolen/involved, victims, place and time of occurrence, etc. • Investigation: This module allows the Investigating Officers (IO) to record the Events of developments/progress as and when taking place/made by the IO during the course of investigation e.g. arrest/ surrender of accused, seizure of properties, witness statements recorded, etc., and also facilitate entering the text of his Case Diary. • Prosecution: This module allows the Investigating Officer to record the Events of developments as and when taking place from time-to-time relating to the prosecution stage in the Case e.g. Hearing of the case, Summons/Warrants issued by the Court, etc. • Information: This module facilitate in maintaining various details of criminals within the jurisdiction of a police station and the Listed Organized Gangs and updating it time to time based on the information received from various sources e.g. Modus Operandi, details of knowns, History of Involvements, etc. • State Specific Requirements: Any additional Inputs and/or Outputs requirement developed by individual states are made available through this module. • General/Daily Station Diary: This facilitates capturing the information recorded by the police stations in its Daily Station Diary. • Reports/Registers/Queries: generates various outputs required at different levels.
The CIPA Software Development and Rollout in States The CIPA Software has been developed by NIC in Java and implemented under Open Source environment viz. Linux (OS), PostGreSQL (RDBMS). The Central Development Team comprises of IT professionals from NIC, NCRB and Sun-Certified Java Programmers.
‘State Development Teams’ constituted by the State Governments, consisting of the personnel from NIC State Units, SCRBs, and Police Departments, take charge of the centrally developed CIPA Software, and carry out customisation of the software according to the local requirements within the existing software framework. Customisation follows strict version control and instructions from the “Central Development Team”. State Development Teams are also provided with the services of Java Programmers for limited period to carry out software development.
Rollout of CIPA Software in states has been taken up in stages with implementation of the application at selected police stations first. One technical person is placed full-time at each of the selected police stations for a period of six months for on the job training and handholding support to the police staff. One senior technical person is provided at district headquarters who oversees 10 police stations for trouble shooting on demand. The supply of the hardware/software, training, software implementation and handholding support is entrusted to a single agency for all the police stations within a state.
A state-level CIPA Implementation Committee is formed under the chairmanship of the IG/ DIG In-charge of Police Modernization in the State/Head of the SCRB with State Informatics Officer as one of the members. District-level CIPA Implementation Committee is formed under the chairmanship of the police head of the district, with District Informatics Officer as one of the members.
The Central Development Team imparts training on CIPA Software to the state level CIPA Development Teams. The supervisor level persons placed at the district level are imparted training by the State Development Team on CIPA Software, who in-turn imparts training at District headquarters to the Handholding Persons. The Handholding Persons placed at each police station are the final link of the above chain that is responsible for imparting necessary on-job training both on Office Automation Software and the CIPA Software to the identified operational staff and the supervisory officers of the police stations.
CIPA Software was implemented on a pilot basis at six police stations in New Delhi. His Excellency the Lt. Governor of NCT Delhi and the Hon’ble Union Minister for Communications & IT formally launched the pilot Implementation on 16th December’ 05 at Connaught Place Police Station. Rollout at the remaining 122 police stations in Delhi and at the selected police stations in all the other States/UTs has also been started.
For more information, mail to ambreesh@nic.in