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ICT for Homeland Security India had never been so fortunate before – being one of the rarest and fastest developing economy - having a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 8 to 9 % and blessed with 540 million plus of youth population. It has crossed $ 50 billion mark in IT exports, and has an exploding domestic telecom sector with 500 million plus mobile subscribers base, besides having millions of Indians working in different parts of the world. Given the above facts, it seems and we are very much on track towards national development. However, what is disheartening is the state of affairs in public safety and security, which is one of the essential prerequisites for maintaining and spurring the pace of growth and development. On the northern part, in J&K, the country is witnessing the unprecedented separatists demands and the whole of country now has been struggling with foreign sponsored terrorism for nearly two decades. In the heartland, India has been dogged by the internal security threat by the left wing extremism, and separatism and regionalism in the north east and other parts of the country, respectively. Moreover, having a 7500 Km of coastline, it is vulnerable to security threat from the oceans as well. Amid huge aspirations and expectations of the citizens of a speedily developing nation and the challenges across, its very critical to evaluate the preparedness of the security system, which would ensure people their right to life with dignity; right to work, fearlessly and the right to prosper. Its appalling to notice that despite the long strides made in science and technology in the country, the security agencies– the state police, central police, central para military and armed forces and the intelligence agencies have been largely untouched by these developments. After the Mumbai siege on November 26, 2008, the government has realised that its high time that it took cognisance of its preparedness and response in security, lest it is too late. Perhaps for the 14
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first time, the technological backwardness and ill-structured security set up of the country was acknowledged as the bottlenecks and a complete revamp of security system was felt as need of the hour, with substantial restructuring. As a result, National Investigation Agency was formed in 2008 to investigate the terrorism related crimes and inhuman acts perpetrated by the miscreants. Later, taking serious note of the complicated structure of the whole security set up, where in the security and the intelligence agencies report to different masters and rarely share information and intelligence with one another, the Ministry of Home Affairs proposed setting up a National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) which would be a single reporting place for all the agencies. Delivering the Intelligence Bureau centenary endowment lecture on December 23, 2009, P Chidambaram, Home Minister, Government of India said, “NCTC would therefore have to perform functions relating to intelligence, investigation and operations. All intelligence agencies would therefore have to be represented in the NCTC.” “Some agencies would naturally have to be brought under NCTC and what come to my mind readily are NIA, NTRO, JIC, NCRB and the NSG. The positioning of RAW, ARC and CBI would have to be re-examined and a way would have to be found to place them under the oversight of NCTC to the extent that they deal with terrorism.” In a move to address the persistent technological divide, the Ministry of Home Affairs has recently come up with projects which would create the basic infrastructure for receiving, processing/ organising, collating, analysing and sharing information across multiple levels from circle offices in any part of the country to the monitoring centres in Delhi. Some of these projects are CCTNS, Natgrid, MMP on Immigration, Visa and Foreigners’ Registration and Tracking. Significantly, these planned deployments signals a clear shift in approach in public
safety and security from a defensive to preventive and proactive approach. ICT in Policing Crime and Criminal Tracking Networking and System (CCTNS) Realising, though late, the need for having an integrated approach towards policing – the Ministry of Home Affairs has come up with a Rs 2000 crore project – Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) that is scheduled to be in place by 2011-12. CCTNS, a Mission Mode Project under National e-Governance Plan, will facilitate storage, collation, analysis and transmission/sharing of crime and criminals related information at the police station, District, State and Central levels. “The police stations in the country are, today, virtually unconnected islands. There is no system under which one police station can talk to another directly. There is no record of crimes or criminals that can be accessed by a Station House Officer, except the manual records relating to that police station,” Chidambaram said, while speaking on the need for a technological solution like CCTNS. Earlier, to computerise and automate the police stations, Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) was deployed. However, it had its own limitations, especially in expanding the functional application and build in networking capabilities in to the system. National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), being the central nodal agency for CCTNS, will look after its implementation across 35 states and Union Territories. Across the country, 14,000 plus police stations and 6,000 plus higher offices, including District Head Quarters, Range Offices, Commissionerates, State Head Quarers, etc will be automated and integrated. The proposed solutions/ modules (indicative) for the Police Department are as follows: 1. Registration, Investigation, and Prosecution Solutions