Soon New Passport Without Police Verification.
The physical police verification for
getting a passport may soon be dispensed with as the Centre plans to
connect the procedure with Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and
Systems Project (CCTNS), a project first conceptualised by the UPA
government in 2009.
By implementing this CCTNS the painful
passport verification process, often involving bribing local police
officers who confirm your address and identity could soon be simplified
to just a few clicks.
Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi said
the CCTNS, an exhaustive national database of crimes and criminals that
will check the antecedents of applicants at the click of a mouse, was
expected to be linked with the passport service of the External Affairs
Ministry.
National database
“Police in some states are already using
CCTNS for passport credentials. Police will be given handheld devices
to go to an applicant’s address and his or her details will be uploaded
on the network. It will minimise contact of an individual with police
and reduce time (for getting passport),” Mr. Mehrishi told reporters.
Mr. Mehrishi was speaking after Home
Minister Rajnath Singh launched the CCTNS project, which aims to connect
the country’s all 15,398 police stations.
He said the mandate of the CCTNS had
been expanded by incorporating citizen-centric services such as tenant
verification, which could be done with the consent of the person being
verified, quick registration of FIR in any crime and connecting the
network with criminal justice delivery system.
Asked about the safety of the database,
the Home Secretary said possibility of hacking was always there but
enough safeguards had been put in place and the National Critical
Information Infrastructure Protection Centre had been roped in for the
task.
The Home Minister said the digital
police portal would provide citizens facilities for online complaint
registration and request for antecedent verification. “The police portal
will provide 11 searches and 46 reports from the national database for
state police and central investigation agencies. Central investigating
and research agencies have also been provided logins to the digital
police database to access crime statistics,” Mr. Singh said.
Mr. Singh said the CCTNS has enabled
13,775 out of 15,398 police stations to enter 100 per cent data into the
software. He said as of now the CCTNS national database has around 7
crore data records pertaining to past and current criminal cases. The
project will interconnect about 15,398 police stations and 5,000 offices
of supervisory police officers across the country.
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