Technology and Police – Experiences of Arunachal Pradesh Police
“Sir, Chargesheet to submit kar di, but Judge sahab ne bola hai ki Font size bahut Chota hai”. These were the words of an Investigation Officer after he submitted his first Chargesheet over CCTNS system to the Judicial Magistrate. Unable to change the font size of Chargesheet printed out from the CCTNS system, the IO, incidentally the most tech savvy in the district, was stuck between a Magistrate not happy with the Chargesheet and the SP pressurizing to use the system. With the realization that it would need change in the source code of the Application Software to change the font size, what looked like a very small issue could potentially delay the adoption of the CCTNS project in the District. And in Governance, project delayed may be project derailed.
Policing in its present form is a relatively new invention in our society. Modern Policing started in England in the form of London Metropolitan Police after 1829. Over time, a system heavily borrowed from England was setup in India, tweaked to fulfil the needs of a colonial system of governance. The Police Act of 1861 formed the base of Policing of many states which slowly has been replaced by modern Police Acts, suited to the changed societal expectation of professionalism, independence, and accountability. Arunachal Pradesh, with no Police Act of its own, still continues to follow the 150 year old Act. A Police Act for the state is now though under consideration.
This new invention of our times, however, has been plagued by slow adoption of technology and is often accused of being wrapped up in age old practices and processes. Technology has changed the way our society functions. It has revolutionized sectors like transportation, communication, etc. and has had a profound impact on governance and delivery of public services. One of its direct consequences has been the change of departmental processes and systems in order align them with the changed technology.
There have been efforts to modernize policing in the states through technology. On one end there are technologies like CCTV Cameras, Facial recognition, Forensic technology, etc. which are making us better in prevention and investigation of crime. Advances like Narcoanalysis are bringing us closer to peeping inside the mind of the perpetrator, a dream come true for any investigator. But these are bound by an individual’s Constitutional and Privacy Rights. Such technologies are not new and unknown to the Police organization or the common people. However, often neglected aspect of technology for Policing is its use for improving Police as an organization. A 2016 study by McKinsey Centre for Government found that digitizing of behind-the-scenes processes offers the most potential for productivity gains in public sector. It is also the most difficult thing to do.
Policing is a manpower intensive job. There are not good alternatives to the age old system of patrolling. In fact, foot patrolling is many times more effective for crime control in a small area than vehicular patrolling. Similarly, security of personnel, installations, maintenance of Public order, investigation, handling of criminals, witnesses etc. all require manpower and are not largely replaceable by the technology we have. But all this manpower intensity might have made Police a slow adopter in technologies which can improve Police processes and make it a more effective organization.
Technology being adopted in our state
One of the most important projects ongoing in Arunachal Pradesh is the implementation of Crime and Criminal Tracking and Networking System (CCTNS). This national project, envisaged and funded by Government of India, radically changes the organization’s processes and systems. Most of the processes in a Police Station like entry into Daily Diary, registration of FIR, investigation, preparation of Chargesheet etc. would be done through computer systems in the Project. The advantages are many. It, for the first time, seamlessly connects all the police forces of the country. This synergy is essential since crime and criminals are not restrained by state boundaries. Citizens can avail multiple services through this project. It will not be an exaggeration to say that CCTNS might perhaps be the most ambitious technology project ever in the history of Indian Policing System.
In 2017, MHA has obtained approval for implementation of Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS). This system would seamlessly link Police, Courts, Prisons, Forensic Labs and Prosecution. This will strengthen the system as a whole and would open up immense possibilities through data analysis. Successful operationalization of this project would be a major milestone in the criminal justice system of our country.
Other big project lined up is the Emergency Response Support System, also known as Dial-112, again conceptualized and funded by Government of India. This project impacts the operational processes of the police and will overhaul the way we respond to distress calls and emergencies. A state-of-art Control Room is being built in Police Headquarters, Itanagar with technical support from Centre for Advanced Computing – C-DAC. It will directly link emergency response vehicles of Police, Fire Service and Health Department to this Control Room through cellular networks. Recently, Nagaland became the first state in North-Eastern region to launch this system.
The other area where scope exists for adoption of technology is the management of assets and management of Human Resources. Arunachal Pradesh Police is working along with National Informatics Centre, Itanagar in bringing in systems for scientific management of these assets through technology. Effective management of assets is absolutely necessary for a professional Police Force. It not only improves the operational capabilities of the force but also streamlines the modernization roadmap of the department.
Challenges
The underlying challenges in successful adoption of technology in our state can be divided into two main categories. One is the basic infrastructure that needs to be in place for any technology to work. Without surface connectivity like roads, implementing any projects becomes many times difficult and expensive. The other major impediments are lack of electricity and network connectivity. Low voltage and erratic power supply increases the implementation costs and complexity of any project by introducing equipment like Stabilizer, Online UPS and Generator. And the biggest challenge is not their one time installation, but their upkeep in the remotest corner of the state. 54% of our functional Police Stations where CCTNS is under implementation do not have any kind of internet connectivity without which the system cannot work optimally! In fact, we don’t even need to go too far. The connectivity of the Data Centre of the Project in Itanagar is down since a long time due to various reasons.
Similar challenges might be there in the ERSS Dial-112 system that is being implemented. It would be thus critical to build in power and connectivity redundancies. While the mobile network may form the backbone of the project, equally important role will have to be played by the good old Wireless Telecommunication network of the Police Department. The importance of Police Wireless network may have decreased due to coming up of mobile network in the state, but the time has come where we would have to acknowledge the important role Police Wireless plays as a standalone communication network serving as a backup in our disaster prone state. A thorough revamp of the system by filling up of dark patches in coverage of the Network, Digitization and switching to High Band Frequency may be the need of the hour. The process to move up into a higher frequency band which will result in a better communication network is already at an advance stage in Central Government.
But perhaps the biggest challenge of all in adoption of technology is training and motivating the Police force to use the system. Improper use of technology leads to duplication of work. This overburdens the functionaries and they become skeptical of the project ultimately leading to its demise. It has become a very common story in implementation of Government Technology project. For successful implementation, the project first needs to be marketed to supervisory officers. Then it needs to be sold to the cutting edge functionaries. Then they need to be trained to use the technology. And then this training has to continue regularly as an institutional mechanism.
Every organization today has an IT department, manned by experts. From simple updating the antivirus software to commissioning of big tech projects is handled and supported by the IT team. Arunachal Pradesh Police Department does not have any in-house IT expert to take care of the various projects, even at the Headquarters level. Expedited recruitment of trained IT professionals may be one of the important pre-requisite for successful implementation of tech projects in the department. The requirement of modern times is that every district should have an in-house tech resource in the Office of Superintendent of Police who can troubleshoot problems of Police Systems like CCTNS, ERSS etc. and maintain the availability of these critical systems on the field. Serious issues can be escalated to Police Headquarters where experts can tackle the issue along with any external technology provider, if any.
Along with IT experts, there would be need to train and re-train our personnel to use technology. All Police Officers are nowadays introduced to CCTNS project while getting trained. Development of regular refresher and in-service courses is also in progress so that existing workforce can migrate onto new systems. However, the paucity of manpower at district level is a serious impediment to training. Districts are reluctant to release officers for training. We may have to explore decentralization of training at District levels. Other measure that can be put in place is increasing the weightage of knowledge of technology in our recruitment process, especially at the levels of Sub-Inspectors.
Training and capability development also requires development of the right attitude in the Police personnel towards technology and the projects. A sense of ownership at all levels is most essential for successful implementation and usage of technology. Organizational pressure to use technology for official work is required for early adoption but it has to slowly convert into a self-sustained momentum in the organization towards that project and technology. Rethinking motivation and attitudinal change in Police force may be easier said than done, but it is something that we cannot escape.
All technology projects of the Police force ultimately have to result in better and more efficient delivery of Police Services to the citizens. And this gives us an ultimate tool to ensure that technology once adopted is not discarded. If the benefits of the technology are evident to the client of the organization, which in this case is the general public, the focus of the organization becomes to improve the technology further rather than to discard it on the first opportunity. For example, in Arunachal Pradesh, CCTNS offers various Citizen Services like Character Verification, viewing of FIRs, Lost and Found Services, Vehicle enquiry, Employee Verification etc. Once proper usage of these Citizen Services is achieved, the efforts of the organization would be to improve the services further. Similarly, once citizens experience the benefits of a centralized Emergency Control Centre of ERSS in the form of reliability and promptness of Police Response, and increased accountability of the Police functionaries, there would not be any going back on the project.
Successful adoption of technology in Governance is always a work in progress. Any successful project requires that proper attention is paid during the design of the project, the implementation is minutely monitored and most importantly, the level of supervisions and monitoring is maintained after commissioning of the project. Successful projects are the ones which get absorbed into the DNA of the organization, which are not dependent upon an individual officer or a group of functionaries. And this would be the biggest challenge that Arunachal Pradesh Police will face in its newfound journey of becoming a tech savvy, smart and effective Police Force.
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