Kerala - Kochi   

Computerisation of police stations yet to take off

Staff Reporter

Common Integrated Police Application to improve workflow

KOCHI: Almost all police stations in the city have been given computers and peripherals, but it seems that they will have to wait a little longer before moving into the "paperless" phase.

The police force in the city is waiting for the National Informatics Centre to incorporate Malayalam fonts into the computer systems.

Only after that can they use the machines to file First Information Reports (FIRs) and case diaries.

It is now expected that the system will take at least a couple of months to become operational. The system was earlier scheduled to be complete in August.

Computers installed

Computers have been installed at 16 stations under the Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) being implemented by the Union Government.

Five police stations, namely Ernakulam Town Central, Panangad, Kalamassery and Traffic Stations East and West, which were included in the Modernising Government Programme (MGP), were not given computers under this scheme.

They will be using the machines provided under the MGP.

Easy access

"With CIPA, access to crime data would be made easy. Also, the functioning of police station could be monitored remotely, which will in effect bring about big improvement in the efficiency of the force," said K. Padmakumar, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Ernakulam Range.

Electrical and network cabling of all the stations have been completed. Almost all the police officers and more than 50 per cent of head constables have been given training in handling computers.

It is expected that once CIPA is implemented, the workflow at police stations could also be improved.

Tracking cases

The progress of cases could be more effectively tracked, as all the details would be available in the network. The activities of the city police would be coordinated at the District Crime Records Bureau. During the next phase, exchange of information between districts across the State would be made possible.

The final phase of the project would be networking all the information to the National Crime Records Bureau.

Regional languages

While the regional languages would be used in filing local documents such as FIR, other information would be entered in English so as to support exchange of data across the country, said one of the policemen associated with the Computer Cell of the City Police.

The police personnel were now practising on the system by entering previous FIRs using the pilot software. CIPA would be using free software LINUX as operating system.

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