Bhubaneswar: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India Wednesday highlighted significant gaps in planning, implementation, and monitoring of Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) in Odisha.
In its report on ‘Information Technology Audit of CCTNS in Odisha for the year ended March 2023’ tabled in the Assembly, the auditor evaluated the system’s performance in the state from its implementation in 2013 till March 2023. CCTNS, a flagship National e-Governance Mission Mode Project of the Union Home Ministry, was intended to modernise policing, enable digital crime records, and improve investigation and citizen services.
However, the audit found that key objectives of the project have not yet been achieved, leaving scope for errors and data manipulation. The auditor found irregularities in the tendering process adopted by the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) that resulted in the extension of undue benefit to the selected software services provider. Data digitisation and migration were the most important activities and constitute a major component in the successful implementation of CCTNS project. As per the contract, the system integrator was to digitise old/records of 10 years (from 2001 to 2010) as well as open cases even if the case had been registered before 2001. “However, the SCRB decided to digitise old/past records for the period January 2003 to December 2012, which was not in compliance with the contractual terms,” the CAG noted.
The process of data migration from the system used earlier (Crime and Criminal Information System and Common Integrated Police Application) was incomplete and incorrect. “This, in turn, meant that CCTNS could not be utilised for the retrieval of data as intended for the period,” it said.
Instances were found where FIRs were logged before General Diary (GD) entries and arrests/seizures recorded before FIR registration. Between 2018 and 2023, at least 412 FIRs were dated earlier than their GD entries. “Personnel no longer handling certain cases still had digital access, raising the risk of unauthorised data changes,” it said. Police stations continued using manual registers for case diaries, chargesheets, and court disposal memos. Of 7.44 lakh FIRs registered between 2018 and 2023, only 18,513 were entered in CCTNS.
