Shimla: In a major recognition to the efforts of the state police and a reaffirmation of its commitment to professional policing, the Himachal Pradesh Police has topped the all India Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) Pragati ranking with a score of 99.77.

In an exclusive conversation with Bureaucrats India, DGP Sanjay Kundu, IPS, said: “CCTNS top ranking is a great feat for the Himachal Police. I congratulate the entire team for this accolade. We have achieved this milestone and have left behind many advanced States, which were dominating the All-India CCTNS performance ranking."

He said that professionally trained nodal officers at the Police Stations cater to the training needs of police personnel at district-level, and we have been very particular about arming our cops with requisite skills and know how to have better policing at the grassroots level.   

CCTNS is a Mission Mode Project under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of Government of India. It aims at creating a comprehensive and integrated system for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of policing through adoption of principles of e-Governance and creation of a nationwide networking infrastructure for evolution of IT-enabled-state-of-the-art tracking systems around ‘Investigation of crime and detection of criminals.’

The Government of India monitors the CCTNS project implementation performance of all states and union territories and has set parameters under PRAGATI for the same. The Himachal Pradesh Police has ranked first among the 11 Hilly and North Eastern states for three consecutive years - 2020, 2021 and 2022. It has also been awarded with trophies by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.

The State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) is the state nodal agency for successful implementation of the CCTNS project. “The SCRB provides round the clock technical support to the police stations in the state,” Kundu said. 

“We also continuously monitor the progress of all police stations, which follow 24 pre-defined CCTNS ranking parameters by the National Crime Bureau of Investigation (NCRB). Based on our findings, we keep issuing regular advisories to the poor performing districts," said the DGP.

The regular monitoring of the CCTNS implementation is also done by the State Apex Committee, headed by the Chief Secretary, followed by the State Empowered Committee headed by the DGP. The District Mission team monitors the whole functioning at the district level.

The CCTNS is operational at 246 sites, including police stations and offices of Superintendents of Police. Manual registration of FIRs has been stopped in the State and all FIRs are being registered electronically in CCTNS at all police stations. Charge-sheets are also filed electronically, added DGP Kundu.

It is worth mentioning that the Himachal Pradesh Police have received many accolades including the Presidential Police Colour. The unique model of ‘Evidence Based and Predictive Policing’ to check the crime rate in the state has resulted in reduction of crime rates to a great extent. /BI/