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eCOPS bags National Award for Exemplary eGovernance Initiative |
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The picture shows Sri. S.V.Ramana Murthy, I.P.S, IGP, PCS receiving the Award from Hon’ble Deputy Prime
Minister of |
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NATIONAL RECOGNITION FOR
e-COPS: e-COPS has
achieved another milestone by bagging the National Award for exemplary eGovernance initiative of Government of A.P. The Award was
presented by the Hon’ble Deputy Prime Minister of PLAN OF
ACTION - EXTENSION OF e-COPS: The
Government of Action is already initiated to replicate the eCOPS Application Software in Cyberabad, Police Commissionerate and RangaReddy District. The necessary computer equipment has been procured and supplied to respective locations (Police Stations, Circles, SDPOs, Headquarters etc) in Commissionerate of Police, Cyberabad and Vikarabad District Police. Plans are ahead to extend eCOPS in 12 Districts in this year and in the balance 11 Districts in the next year. eCOPS Evolution eCOPS is conceptualized by Andhra
Pradesh Police to computerise the total policing by
utilizing State of art technology which is catapulting the AP Police into
speedy processing, increased efficiency, transparent policing and better
interaction with the Citizen of Andhra Pradesh. Information and
communication technologies are important tools of the Government of Andhra
Pradesh to become SMART (Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and
Transparent). With this inspiration, the police department is adopting
leading edge technologies in various application areas. In view of the
above, Andhra Pradesh Police has taken a lead in computerization in various
fields of police functioning. The State is a pioneer in developing an
automatic fingerprints identification system, which has greatly enhanced the
quality and speed of investigation. For the first time in the State the
recruitment results were processed with the aid of computer and developed
Software. The State is also taking a
lead in computerizing the records of the Department at all levels from Police
Station to Police Headquarters. Decision was taken to fully computerize and
network the Police Stations, Circle Offices, S.D.P.O offices and District
Police Offices to reduce delay and enable officers to analyse
crime, disseminate information, access records, etc. In the field of Police
administration, critical areas have been identified leading to the
development of e-Computerized Operations for Police Services (eCOPS) Application Software. eCOPS Development Andhra Pradesh Police manual which details the procedures, Rules &
regulations, System of Police working, Delegation of powers, Management
Information System etc. was revised and re-drafted in the recent years. As
part of this revision study was made on the number of reports to be generated
by different locations viz Police Station upto District Police Office. The number
of reports which are outdated have been eliminated at this stage itself. Presently,
there are many redundant and outdated reports which are sent by Police
Stations to the controlling unit officer. In eCOPS
this redundancy is eliminated by standardizing the formats based on the
useful ness of each and every data resulting in cost saving on stationary. At the time of eCOPS Application
Software development, the core group deliberated in each and every periodical
report, the reports which had no end usage value were discarded and other
reports were modified to be more comprehensive and informative. In this
process the number of reports to be generated at the Police Station was
reduced from 75 to 43 and at the DCP office from 110 to 60. The mandatory
reports required by the Government have been allowed to be continued without
change. The core group discussed and re-engineered some of the process cutting down
redundancy. All procedures and regulations existing as on the date of
Software development were embedded in the Software (e.g. the spirit of G.O.Ms. 610 is incorporated in the recruitment module) to
generate information for aiding predictable decisions. The system therefore
prompts the concerned Officials to take timely appropriate predictable
decisions thus enabling further delegation of powers down the line. Another example
is the system discourages the
practice of deployment of stock panchayathdars thus
presenting 100% credibility to the judiciary on the investigative machinery. The eCOPS envisages information sharing within the organisation and across the States in the country
especially the information on Crime & Criminals for effective working of
Police. For integration at National level, the following Seven Integrated
Police Forms standardized by National Crime Records Bureau have been adopted
as the basis for eCOPS Crime Module development.
These integrated forms cover most of the information needed by Criminal
Justice System. and the database records the following information :- 1.
FIR (First Information Register) (act,
section, occurrence, complaint, accused property detail, brief complaint) 2.
Crime Detail Form (type of crime, features,
physical evidence, panch witness, place of crime) 3.
Property Search & Seizure 4.
Arrest/Court Surrender(arrest details, bail
details, personal items recovered) 5.
Charge Sheet & Case Disposal
Reports(charge sheet information, property recovered/ seized, action taken) 6.
Court Disposal (adult, juvenile, punishment) 7.
Result of Appeals 8.
Other registers (interrogation details, case
diary, witness details, remand diary, case calendar etc) Effective
coordination among different departments / entities in criminal justice
system i.e. Forensic Science Laboratories and Prosecution Department is being
ensured by interfacing for access and transfer of information between
departments – thus making it easier to collect inputs needed for proper and
quicker investigation of a case. eCOPS is being integrated with the fully computerised Fingerprint Analysis Criminal Tracing System
(FACTS). This also makes obligatory for these Departments to respond
promptly improving their accountability. The solution
framework has been tested in the 4 Pilot locations. The feedback from the
Pilot locations has been analysed and the new
versions and release plan of the solution framework is in place based on the
feedback. The proof of concept in terms of functionality and with respect to
technology has been done and now the solution can be replicated in all the
locations within the State. As Application Software is an evolving process it
is highly difficult to envisage and crystalise the
functional requirements in one phase. Continuous improvement based on the
environmental changes and functional, cross functional requirements,
inter-functional requirements is under progress to attain enhanced usability.
After using eCOPS (version 1.0 and version 1.1),
the Field Officers have suggested refinements and additional requirements in eCOPS. This feedback was examined on the feasibility and
end use and M/s CMC were advised to incorporate these suggestions and
refinements. Accordingly, CMC duly incorporating these features,
released eCOPS (version 2.0) and loaded in all the
Systems in Benefit of eCOPS It is the
Citizen who is benefited a lot through eCOPS. In the
manual System, registration of FIR was not done 100% accurately for
various reasons. Certain mandatory information needed was also not collected either the
complainant furnished vague information or much thought was not given to the
importance of the information which would have helped later in speeding up
the investigation process. The System’s insistence for certain mandatory
information at the time of registration of complaint automatically improved
the responsiveness of the Police and in turn is building up sensitivity. Once
a complaint is registered, it is electronically transferred to the higher
authorities. Consequently, the scope for delinquencies such
as non-acceptance of a complaint, loss of track of case, etc are
totally eliminated. The
transparency in the system helps in enhancing public interface and
confidence. It is assisting in expediting the progress of investigating
process culminating in dispensing timely justice and ultimately bringing the
criminal activity under control. Benefits to
the Organisation: 1.
Crime – analysis guides the Investigating
Officer on the right track. Data available and analysed
information from the system enables a new comer to get vast information with
least delay and allows him to plan and settle down in his work at the
earliest. 2.
The present system insists for systematic
collection of data without missing the important details. Documents are seen
by supervisory officials. The senior officers are in a position to keep track
of all the cases registered, including those transferred. 3.
The Police personnel are not keen in using
third degree methods to extract information from the accused. As the system
is in a position to give the details of arrests made at various Police
Stations, which helps the investigating Officer to elicit the information
from the accused without resorting to human right violations thus making the
life of Police Officer more content. 4.
In the manual system, when property is
recovered by some other Police Station other than the PS where the crime is
registered, it was a tedious task to match the PS with the lost property and
the PS which recovered the property. Today eCOPS
can match the lost and recovered property and there by pin point the real
efficiency / productivity of the individual officer / Unit Productivity of men is established with
correct supporting data making it a reality to evaluate the performance and
productivity of Officials on scientific lines. This is now being realized
through eCOPS. 5. Before computerisation, the part
of the force was engaged for carrying out unproductive jobs such as
delivering FIRs to higher officials, collecting
Postmortem reports, wound certificates etc. They were also utilised for entering, filling individual registers,
preparing periodical reports etc. Work force is now used for the purpose for
which they were trained (Policing) and not on unproductive tasks. 6. When a Grave Crime is registered by the Police station,
System immediately transfers the Grave Crime details to the Server at Unit
Headquarters which in turn by reverse dialing process alerts the concerned
Officers up the line of Police Station thus improving the sensitivity of the
System manifold. eCOPS has since progressed steadily
and its usage has stabilized in the 4 Pilot Units viz. Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam
Cities and Srikakulam District and two other units Cyberabad & Rangareddy as
could be seen from the following table :- eCOPS
USAGE –
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