The Hindu : E-COPS to usher in new chapter in policing

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 16, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

E-COPS to usher in new chapter in policing

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD June 15. The State police are set to have the distinction of being the first police agency in the country to introduce total computerisation and networking of all police stations.

The project named e-Computerised Operations for Police Services (e-COPS) would be formally launched by the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, on Monday. The first of its kind software developed by the police in collaboration with Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Cisco, Locuz and other giants would enable the police reduce the wastage of manpower in maintenance of records and provide online connectivity between the police station at the field level and all supervisory offices.

The e-COPS facility would be made operational in 225 police stations in Commissionerates of Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada, in addition to Ranga Reddy and Srikakulam districts. The facility would be extended to all police stations by next year, the Home Minister, T. Devender Goud, told a press conference here on Saturday.

Describing it as a new chapter in policing, Mr. Goud maintained that the set-up would increase efficiency among the police force. So far the department had spent over Rs. 15.71 crore while the total cost of the project would be about Rs. 40 to Rs. 50 crores, he stated.

Briefing newsmen on its features, the IG (Computers), S.V. Ramanamurthy, said the facility was designed to reduce paperwork substantially and to help the police in automatic maintenance of registers and generation of reports, data analysis, planning and coordination.

Citing an example, Mr. Ramanamurthy said whenever a case was reported at a station the personnel were required to enter the facts in as many as eight different registers, including issuing of an FIR. But with e-COPS once the details are keyed in, all records would get updated. The data transfer would be done in the morning and evening on a dial-up connection.

However, in the event of an express FIR being issued the data would be transferred to the higher level immediately.

For the benefit of the complainant the progress in the investigation of the crime could be tracked at any level at the click of the mouse. Similarly the system would be integrated with the fingerprints database already existing.

This would help the investigators about movement of criminals, Mr. Ramanamurthy added.

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