- Prelims: AI, e-governance, CCTNS, CCIS, CIPA, GST, Governance, etc
- Mains GS Paper I and II: Statutory, regulatory and various quasi-judicial bodies, Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability etc
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
- In a recent scam, 28 men from Tamil Nadu succumbed to temptation.
- They were promised assorted jobs in Indian Railways and were subjected to fake training for a month.
- P T Barnum-There’s a sucker born every minute.”
INSIGHTS ON THE ISSUE
Context
Governance:
- It is commonly defined as the exercise of power or authority by political leaders for the well-being of their country’s citizens or subjects.
- A great deal about governance is the proper and effective utilization of resources.
- Governance includes three sectors:
- The public sector (state actors and institutions)
- The private sector (households and companies)
- The civil society (non-governmental organizations)
E-Governance:
Goals:
Recent Scams:
- 28 men from Tamil Nadu were promised assorted jobs in Indian Railways.
- A person posed as the Central Commandant of Crime and Criminal Tracking Network Systems (CCTNS).
Crime and Criminal Tracking Network Systems (CCTNS):
- CCTNS feeds into the Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS).
- CCTNS connects police stations and digitiser FIR registration, investigation and charge sheets
- There are around 17,000 police stations and more than 97 percent have CCTNS software and connectivity.
Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS).
- It covers e-courts, e-prisons, forensics and prosecution, leveraging technology to make criminal justice delivery more efficient.
- How is crime dealt with?
- It requires
- investigation
- FIR
- A charge-sheet
- Prosecution
- Successful conviction.
- Prosecution and Successful conviction have to do with ICJS and the way courts work.
- The other three links have to do with the police.
- It requires
IPC (Indian Penal Code) crimes:
- Investigation rates are around 65 percen
- Investigation rate is more than 95 percent in Gujarat,
- About 45 per cent in Jharkhand
Charge-sheeting rates (as percentage of cases investigated);
- For IPC crimes, the all-India average is just over 72 percent.
- Over 90 percent in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala and West Bengal,
- Assam: It is less than 40 percent.
Desirable objectives of CCTNS:
- Digitize data
- Ensure data migration
- Feed FIR registration into CCTNS
- launch citizen portals and so on.
Annual ranking of police stations(The Ministry of Home Affairs):
- It is based on objective data (with an 80 percent weight) and a survey-based assessment (with 20 percent weight).
- In 2022, Aska in Ganjam (Odisha) was ranked the best police station.
- The short-listing for a state (UT) is done on the basis of CCTNS.
Issues:
- Across states, there is a separate Pragati dashboard on different aspects of CCTNS – infrastructure, manpower and use of the database.
- 97 percent of police stations may have been connected to CCTNS, but the figure is 77 percent for West Bengal (as of January 2022).
- Zero percent of legacy data has migrated in Bihar.
Way Forward
- The criminal justice systems should also be standardized, harmonized and integrated.
- A citizen should be entitled to the same level of law and order, regardless of residence.
- Prisoners must have access to Aadhaar, for enrolment and upgradation
- It will make prison administration easier.
- We are far away from the principles of one country – “one police” and “one prison”.
- In this aspect of governance, if states belong to two different worlds, no matter how good a tool CCTNS is, the benefits will fall short.
QUESTION FOR PRACTICE
What do you understand about the term ‘good governance’? How far have recent initiatives in terms of e-Governance steps taken by the State have helped the beneficiaries? Discuss with suitable examples.(UPSC 2022) (200 WORDS, 10 MARKS)
