Pcs Summary Report

Andhra Pradesh Police Computer Services Organisation Summary Report

T Krishna Prasad

I.P.S.

IGP, Director Police Communications HAC Police Computer Services & Standardisation

Technologies : MS Exchange Server - SUN SERVER for Database (E450)

Connectivity is through DIALUP and APPSWAN

Applications-ecops Crime Module and AP Police Website eCops-Application with clientserver Model

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3 commissionerates and 1 district with 8 servers and 400 desktops.

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eCops web enabled All servers of the Districts shifted to HQ and formation of AP Police Data Center.

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Multilingual Software CDAC GIST, Microsoft Exchange server

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Expanded to 9 Districts with 18 servers and 1000 desktops.

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All police officers could start using mailing and messaging applications.

Implementation of Anti Virus Software Enterprise edition to all servers and work stations.

Centralised Implementation of eCOPS & Intranet Applications from DC (SCRB, PIS, APPMS, Mailing System, Passport applications, CIS Module, e-challan)

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Expanded to 16 districts with 42 servers, Blade servers adopted with SAN, About 3000 desktops. All Police Stations (1640) are equipped with Computers and established VPN and VPN over Broad Band connected to DATA CENTER.

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Unified Threat Management. MAC consolidation Domain Consolidation IP contingency Revamping of Network connectivity, Provision of Intranet facility for all the sections in the Chief office.

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l Planning for High Performance Computing.

Data Base Strategies and DR planning.

Enhanced security and ITIL policy implementation for the best practices. l

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Proposal of enhancing leased lines Capacity.

Training labs and trained personnel

Integration of Applications into Blade server

Online FIR registration, Web based enterprise eCops Applications launch.

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From the Desk of DGP I am immensely pleased to note that the AP Police Computer Services is bringing out an Organization Summary Report, detailing its remarkable achievements in the last ten years, and the roadmap ahead. I am sure many will find the achievements made by the A.P Police in e-governance as a benchmark for similar projects elsewhere. The Institution of systematization and computerization, as a dedicated wing in the A.P Police Computer Services, has proven to be extremely effective. The wing has managed to integrate a computer-based mode of functioning in to the vast pool of the State Police, so systematically, that in its tenth year, all police locations are computerized and interconnected. The year 2009 is a milestone year not only for the PCS but also for Indian Police as well, as the Electronic Computerization of Police Services (eCOPS) went live all over the state on the 1st January of this year. From 1st January 2009 onwards, each and every Police Station in A.P, including the remotest, has started issuing FIR, online. The achievement of this substantial task, preparation of such a document, to take stock of the work completed so far, and setting new targets have been a commendable task. On behalf of the State Police, I take this opportunity to congratulate IGP, PCS, District IT core teams, Developers, Technical team, Consultants and all the police personnel, who have participated in this mission of heralding the A.P Police force into the world of Information and Communication Technology.

(S.S.P Yadav)

Note from the Inspector General We, at the Police Computer Services Wing of the AP Police, are delighted to present this summary of our performance to the public. This document is both the chronicle of a bold move carried out over the past decade as well as an assessment of where it has reached till now and how far its objectives have been met. We hope that this milestone of sorts will also be a useful pointer to some of the paths we have to travel in the future. For the PCS, the past ten years have been a time of planning new initiatives, of grappling with technical feasibilities, of implementing steps to effectively usher the police force into a technology-intensive era and of incessantly following up these developments seeking successful usage. We always bore in mind that most ICT technical initiatives in the world are not fully successful due to insufficient focus on project planning, low user involvement, and inconsistent project follow-up and implementation. An in depth understanding of all the stake holders, whose utility alone can testify for success, is mandatory for any computerizing venture. The PCS team worked on identifying all such categories and spent quality time pushing the agenda of computerization across its 2500 locations through capacity building and focused project management. Thus, this is a happy success story primarily of staying with each particle of a commitment till its completion. We are proud to share with the people of Andhra Pradesh the fact that we are the only state in the country where every police station is interconnected across the department and information can be put in, retrieved, analyzed and updated in real time from all the police locations, statewide. Online delivery of otherwise time consuming services has been a boon for the police and for the public alike. This occasion of happiness is also an opportunity for us to recall, with due humility, that all our achievements over the past decade would not have been possible without great support from the government, superior officials, the companies that helped us through their corporate social responsibility wings, the dedicated teams of managers, programmers, trainers and officials who worked with us at various junctures. The PCS team joins me in thanking each of you who have helped us in getting where we are now. With your support and good wishes, our dedicated team hopes to continue working on the mission of a smoother, nicer and more effective policing experience for the people in the years to come. Happy reading! T. Krishna Prasad I. P. S.

Contents Introduction

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Policing in the Age of ICT

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The Setting up of PCS

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Vision, Mission and Core Values

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Benefits of ICT in Policing

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The Challenges of Computerization

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How does the PCS Work?

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Responsibilities of the PCS

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ABrief History of the Evolution of PCS

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Infrastructure

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Communication Framework

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Collaborations

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Application Categories & KeyApplications

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Training

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Follow Up

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Where is the PCS now?

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Enterprise eCOPS: The RoadAhead

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Route Map

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Conclusion

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Appendix 1 : Organizational Structure

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Appendix 2 : Success Stories

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Appendix 3 : eLXNeCOPS

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Appendix 4 : Data Centre Evolution

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Introduction This document is a record of the history, services and achievements of the Police Computer Services (PCS), a wing of the Andhra Pradesh Police dedicated to bring about the extensive and effective use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the Department. We live in an age that understands ICT as a basic component of any organization, as it has revolutionized the ways of information flow for better service delivery. ICT can make information accessible at any time and in any place, help consolidate and analyse it for decision support, and enable collaborative action across different locations on a real time basis that increases the efficiency and effectiveness of any organization. This is extremely significant for a governmental agency like the police force with many citizen-facing, governmental and procedural responsibilities assigned to it. It is this vision that prompted the police authorities to establish a strong information technology division within the force. They foresaw that this move to systemize processes would equip the force to act faster and better, by enhancing overall productivity. Now, after ten years of composed work, we see the fruits of computerization: just as much as the increase in efficiency enabled the Police to be a more peoplefriendly and responsive force, the systematization of processes and information has made the ordinary citizen's dealing with the police a better experience. Through a holistic approach that was minutely attentive of each component in computerizing the department, from the study of the processes to detailed planning and implementation of capacity building, the PCS has managed to conceptualize and implement ICT initiatives in the Police Department in order to to provide better services for the police personnel and the public. By documenting the history and approach of the PCS in a comprehensive manner, we hope to showcase how this transformative mission constantly evolves towards successful ICT implementations. This document also chronicles the

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Introduction

lessons of how the premier attempt by Andhra Pradesh in the “IT-ification” of its police force has helped the state to command a pioneering lead over all other Police Departments in India.

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Policing in the Age of ICT The Police perform a variety of duties ranging from the detection and prevention of crime and the keeping of law and order and public peace, to the regulation of traffic, the verification of the antecedents of citizens and immigrants for various official purposes and the execution of various orders of the judiciary. Many of these functions involve gathering, sharing and analyzing information about crime and people. Information technology has a crucial role to play in these functions since it can help in handling the ever increasing amount of information with reference to its systematic storage as well as the speed with which it can be retrieved, shared and analysed for quicker and better decision support. Technology reduces the time the policeman spends on paperwork, legal formalities and administrative functions and frees him up to perform his primary tasks of keeping peace, and preventing and detecting crime with greater efficacy. By infusing transparency and efficiency into his functioning, it boosts his morale and improves the quality of his interactions with the members of the general public. It makes them more able and in the long run, more willing, to cooperate with him in maintaining peace and order in the society. After all, a good rapport with the civil society is a prerequisite to good policing in any society. Moreover, a sad reality of our times is that criminals and terrorists are well-networked and well-informed, and equipped with state-of-the-art technology. In order to fight them successfully, police have to be several paces ahead.

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The Setting up of the PCS As the introduction and expansion of IT in the functioning of policing became an important priority, the police authorities decided to create a separate, dedicated entity within the State Police Department and entrusted this key challenge to the body. Thus the Police Computer Services (PCS) Wing came into existence. This wing initiated the conceptualization and development of software applications, the procurement of ICT infrastructure (hardware, software and netware), the setting up of a strong communications' infrastructure for networking both within individual Police units and across all the Police Units in the state, the building up of physical infrastructure, the introduction of changes in the management of processes including organizational ones as appropriate, and also the systemization and standardization of all these efforts. As per the proceedings of RC.No. 215/R2/99 dated 06-07-1999 of the DG & IGP, A.P, Hyderabad, the Police Computer Services, Hyderabad was bifurcated from the State Crime Records Bureau. These proceedings were ratified by the Government through G.O. Rt No. 4219 Home (Pol-D) Dept. dated 24-12-1999. While the SCRB was placed under direct control & supervision of the Addl. DGP CID, Hyderabad, the PCS was created as an independent unit.

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Vision, Mission and Core Values Vision : An Information Centric police department that is well-connected with the civil society, leveraging ICT to provide efficient service delivery to the citizen of the State in order to minimize Crime and provide an environment for wellbeing and confident action. Mission : Facilitate the computerization of A. P. Police to meet the needs of the public with state-of-the-art technology. Core Values :

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PCS is committed to facilitate all aspects of policing including crime prevention, investigation, traffic and law & order maintenance through ICT enabled solutions.

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Ability to provide access to information on a real time basis across all locations of the Andhra Pradesh Police Department is crucial to the PCS. As a wing that works between millions of citizens and tens of thousands of police officers of different categories, this wing strives to make its interfaces most user-friendly and simple.

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The PCS always conceives of products, services and applications that can be extended to permit more and more functions to seamlessly merge onto a common IT platform, which can be deployed quickly and effectively across multiple, scattered locations. The planning of technical architecture that can provide such extensibility is given prime status by the PCS.

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The PCS team believes in open source software to ensure the above objectives and keeps maintenance costs for all the infrastructure within sustainable norms.

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Capacity building both of technology and human resources is considered to be of prime importance to the PCS team. All the projects are worked out around a well-structured training programme.

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Benefits of ICT in Policing ICT offers tremendous benefits through better connectivity in information sharing, collaborated action on real time basis and in providing decision support via the analysis of consolidated information across different dimensions like time, geography and processes. For example, let us consider the hypothetical case of a child that has been reported as missing at one Police Station. If many other children have gone missing in different near-by locations, this would get reported across different Police Stations depending on the jurisdiction of the residence of the missing children. Taken in isolation, one missing child episode renders a typical case that has to be investigated using standard laid-down norms. However, through information sharing and consolidation carried out automatically via ICT solutions, if several similar cases are discovered, then the investigation takes on a different approach. Not only does it portray specific and repetitive criminal action (possibly by a set of repeat offenders), but analysis of this information historically and geographically, helps the police personnel in their investigations, and also alerts the general public. Further, as the data is shared on a real time basis, the Police can collaborate across different Police Stations in prevention and investigation of such events. To give another example, knowledge of the crime history of each place/time/person helps in preventing crime and untoward events. Thus, if a policeman knows the history of violence in a station area for the past ten years, he can spot the flash points of riots and other crimes, especially during specific, sensitive occasions. This helps the police force to be better prepared at such times and in such areas. However, it is impossible for individual policemen to retain such data or remain in a place where they can be consulted whenever necessary. Even if such data is documented in station records, one would need to laboriously go through it, a process that is akin to looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Typically, experienced Police personnel who have been associated

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Benefits of ICT in Policing

with a specific location for sufficient time duration, would be able to leverage their experiential knowledge in this regard. However, if this knowledge is recorded and made easily accessible and amenable for decision support via an ICT application, the department benefits tremendously. Further, this knowledge can be consolidated for sharing across different locations as well as for improving overall system functioning and reducing person dependency. For the Police, computerization will facilitate faster exchange of critical information between various departments and police stations. It will lead to a substantial reduction in paperwork and free up personnel to focus on their core work, an urgent need in a department like the Police that face a perennial shortage of person-power. The centralized information database with rapid retrieval systems would help streamline decision making process for the Police across the entire State.. The strength of the system lies in providing information-access on a real time basis, enabling information consolidation at a central repository (which helps in analysis) and in facilitating for collaborated decision-making (both internal and external).

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The Challenges of Computerization Doing something for the first time is never easy. During the early stages of its existence the PCS faced several problems. First of all, it was necessary to identify systems and processes that were to be computerized. In order to do this, all the well defined processes of the police department including Crime Reporting, Investigation, Crime Prevention, Traffic, Interaction with other Governmental Bodies and Internal Administrationhad to be studied. After identifying the information elements and studying the Police organization structure with the Police Station as the final Service Delivery point, an analysis of all those functions that could be automated was performed. Only after such an analysis could the actual computerization process start. The next key challenge was to ensure proper involvement of the end user throughout the ICT efforts to help maximize easy user acceptance. This had to be carefully planned with a fine balance between collecting as much data as possible without burdening the end users and providing immediate, simple benefits for the end user to incentivize the user to use the application. As the systems evolved further, more data had to be captured across the State and this was done in a phased manner to help in easy, step by step implementation with minimal user resistance. In addition to the above, standardization of data that is being used in processes was essential to enable computerization and consolidation for data interoperability and future functionality focus towards data warehousing and data mining. Other than study, systemization and computerization (along with necessary standardization of data elements), it was necessary to establish a plan for enhancing the capacity of the personnel through training programmes on a continual basis. From the DGP to the lowest ranked constable, everyone had to be

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The Challenges of Computerization

made proficient in working in an ICT environment, and in using technology to gather, maintain, share and access information from the state-wide corpus of it. Without these being achieved, the computerization of the force would neither be sustainable nor useful to society in the long run.

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How does the PCS Work? The PCS understands the need to develop an organizational setup to handle the central application/ data repository as well as undertake district-level initiatives and requirements like training via district level IT teams. Having trained personnel at the district level would enable the decentralization of field-level decision making, the delegation of tasks down the hierarchy and most crucially, the implementation and usage of ICT based operations across all 2500+ locations in the state through application implementation and deployment. The coordination and control of all the IT activities is handled by the PCS, lead by the Inspector General (IG) and supported by the Deputy Inspector General (DIG). Unit/District level IT teams support these activities at the field level. Typically, these teams are about 10 to 15 personnel strong and are lead by an officer of the rank ofAdditional Superintendent (Addl. SP). At present, the PCS has five functional teams with roles focused on infrastructural operations, interaction with field implementation teams, coordination with software development vendors, management of database and of core data centre. The teams are known as Data Centre Core Team, Operations Team, Tech Team, DBATeam and Software Development Team. For supporting the implementation of IT initiatives across the state, the PCS has taken help from other sections within the Police Department to leverage their existing presence and skills. The Police Communications Department has deputed dedicated staff across the state for supporting ICT infrastructure. This IT Core Team staff is responsible for maintaining the hardware, software and networking environments of IT related infrastructure in each district / unit. Once developed, the ownership of each application is typically handled to the department/wing whose functions the application finally supports.

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Responsibilities of the PCS The Police Computer Services perform the work of proposing, planning and implementing the automation of Police Administration and functional processes through computerization. This involves detailed planning of

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Software requirements

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Hardware selection

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Networking options & Connectivity

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Database Management

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Interaction with hardware/netware vendors,

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Providing domain level support for Software developers

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Creating Citizen Services

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Deciding on maintenance issues and

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Planning inter-departmental interfaces.

Besides, the PCS also supervises and monitors the maintenance of the Data Centre and the Usage of applications/ databases hosted on the police Intranet. Further, this wing also projects any need to organize training courses for IT core team members in districts and units on the basics of computers as well as on specialized technical areas and the usage of various applications developed and implemented by them. They monitor the training activities taken up by these core teams in their respective Districts / Units.

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A Brief History of the Evolution of the PCS List of Officers who lead the Computerization of Police Sri. SSP Yadav, IPS

08-01-1992 to 13-02-1995

Sri. Kamal Kumar, IPS

13-02-1995 to 11-06-1998

Smt. Aruna Bahuguna, IPS

12-06-1998 to 26-08-1999

Sri. S.V. Ramana Murthy, IPS

27-05-2001 to 05-01-2005

Sri. Vinay Ranjan Ray, IPS

05-01-2005 to 09-01-2007

Sri. M. Mahendar Reddy, IPS

10-01-2007 to 01-09-2008

Sri. T. Krishna Prasad, IPS

01-09-2008 Onwards

(in her capacity as Director, SCRB) and as IG from 26-081999 to 25-05-2001

D i r e c t o r, P o l i c e Communications holding Additional Charge as IGP, PCS

Smt. Aruna Bahuguna IPS, the first Director and IGP of the PCS made it a separate entity within the department in 1998. During her tenure, the primary thrust of the work of the PCS was on the infrastructure build-up including procurement of hardware and the collection and digitizing of data and records, wherever needed. The summary statements and about 20 forms that each police station needed to be sent to the National Crime Bureau were getting computerized at this stage. During the tenure of Sri S.V. Ramana Murthy, IPS, a comprehensive study was conducted throughout the entire Department to identify modules and systems and to start computerization. The PCS collaborated with M/S CMC Ltd., a public sector company, and started the process of computerization of several identified modules. The focus at this stage was on the computerization of the Crime Recording and

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A Brief History of the Evolution of the PCS

Investigation process. The first version of Electronic Computerization of Police Services, eCOPS, was rolled out during this period. This version of eCOPS was on a client server architecture, in a distributed database model requiring regular transfer of data through e-mails. This required servers at each unit headquarters and database-driven applications to be loaded at each Police Station. All modifications/and rectifications had to be updated at each server. Though maintenance was tough and expensive, it was a good learning experience and PCS activities got stabilized during this period. In 2005, Sri Vinay Ranjan Ray, IPS, with the help of rapidly emerging technology environments, took the decision of shifting the entire process from the client server platform to a web-enabled one. Rendering the system web-enabled allowed anytime-anywhere operations, minimized field-level maintenance cost, allowed quicker turn around times for new, improved application rollouts and also provided a mechanism to consolidate information at a central location thus providing the correct impetus for data warehousing, mining and analysis in future. It was during this same period that a data centre was established in Hyderabad, which was inaugurated by the Chief Minister, Sri. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. During the tenure of Sri M. Mahendar Reddy, IPS, the advantages of a Data Centre driven model was fully utilized and the Intranet portal providing a slew of police applications, accessible all over the State, was developed. The Intranet portal gained a proper structure and design and became a very easy interface to handle. By 2008, the culture of computerization had struck deep roots in the ways of functioning of the department.

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A Brief History of the Evolution of the PCS

Sri T. Krishna Prasad IPS, the current IGP, is concentrating on the enterprise mode of computerizing, wherein all relevant cohesive operations and applications are merged onto one single platform providing a seamless experience to the end user along with combining the benefits of all the existing applications. This Enterprise eCOPS will be a major upgrade over the existing application. It will also incorporate appropriate technologies to render it for easy integration across different applications external to the Police Department (the Passport Application for example). The Enterprise eCOPS initiative will be a significant step towards performance, scalability and extensibility of ICT driven services that are provided by the Police department. During this period, AP Police has entered a new IT era. From the first of January 2009 onwards, each and every Police Station in AP began issuing FIRs online. There is also a plan to merge information and communication within the police force. As computers help organize, collate and analyze data and derive information, and the communication setup ensures that this information is available across the organization for decision support and action, a merger of these two functionalities is perceived to be necessary for smoother functioning and quicker resolutions. The department is now formalizing such a merger of the Police Communication Wing and Police Computer Services.

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Infrastructure The Police Computer Services (PCS) is headquartered at the police headquarters in Hyderabad. The data centre is located in the PCS premises. The PCS also has the infrastructure for sustaining about 10-15 of its staff as well as computer workplaces for providing development support to any team of about 15-20 persons. A conference room and a training room with appropriate e-classroom facilities are available. The ICT solutions incorporated by the PCS follow an open source policy, typically using the Java based frameworks. The Database Management functionality is provided by an Enterprise Oracle database. All others are javabased. Specific attention has been given to interoperability across different systems with data integration via SOAand XML. The procurement of new machines is typically done with the purchase of OS licenses. There is a drive to go in for Linux based systems with Open Office for future procurements. PCS&S deployed 42 servers in its Data Centre and installed 5000 systems across the State in November 2008. Each and every Police Station in the State has at least one Computer. All these computers across the organization are connected locally on the LAN. Applications are being developed in a web-environment with a centralized data centre (at the police headquarters at Hyderabad), built to host all these applications. The department has encouraged each unit district to develop a relationship with local vendors for hardware and networking support and maintenance. This improves the overall uptime of all systems and hence proves to be more economical.

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Communication Framework The communication network of the department connects each police station in the state across the entire organizational hierarchy, with the police headquarters. The computers at the lowest level of hierarchy would need to have just the basic operating systems for browser based support. In addition, simple office applications would be available for local usage. The connectivity across all these police stations is currently via combinations of dial-up based phone lines, CDMA wireless connections, State wide WAN (APSWAN) and DSL broadband. The quality of the bandwidth available varies and it is difficult to host applications demanding higher connectivity. The PCS has outsourced the entire connectivity responsibility to BSNL by entering into a partnership with them. BSNL would also keep on evolving solutions towards a better communication infrastructure as and when such alternatives are developed. The PCS also constantly invites and receives feedback from the users of various applications through IT Core Team Members and furnishes such feedback to the appropriate teams for further action. Bug related feedback is reported to the Development Team, so that the latter can rectify shortcomings in the principal software and make the necessary modifications to it. A Help Desk has been established at the Police Computer Services for the registration of Complaints and rectification of the problems relating to the Hardware, Software, Network, Internet, and Applications from all the Districts and Units in the Police Department including the Headquarters.

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Collaborations Through collaborations on the computerization of citizen-facing duties and for back end support, the PCS works to enrich the link between the police department and similar departments to form an integral citizen-service network. We help the units of the AP Police collaborate with each other as well as with other government departments such as the Passport Office, Courts, prominent Hospitals, the Road Transport Authority, the e-Seva network, the Public Distribution System (for a Data base for Ration cards) and all the prisons. Along with the partnership with BSNL on connectivity, we also liaise with various Government and Public Sector bodies such as the IT & C Department and NIC for getting technical solutions and guidance in the task of networking all Police Stations in the State with the Central Data Centre through Broadband internet, CDMA, Dial-up connectivity, etc.

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Application Categories & Key Applications Applications for public interactions are primarily focused on providing information and seeking collaborative support wherever possible for support in Policing. The public are given access to the applications via the website (apstatepolice.org). The website (apstatepolice.org) provides the public collaboration interface, where a citizen can avail information about the status of various tasks for which they approach the police station as well as share any information that they might like the Police to know of. Availability of information such as the status of any case in a police station/court, passport verification, traffic challan and document delivery status make things a lot easier for the public. Further, this approach helps in enhancing the transparency of the police as a law enforcing body and reduces the citizen's dependence on officialdom. The more secured framework that was required for applications involving information sharing/collaboration within the Police Department is provided via the intranet portal used privately by the police personnel. All the above applications are hosted at the centralized, secured Data Centre located at the Police Headquarters. The primary application that provides basic operational support for Citizen Service Delivery is the Electronic Computerisation of Police Services (eCOPS) application. eCOPS is the first significant step towards the integration of the state-of-art IT infrastructure within the Andhra Pradesh State Police Department. It provides a platform for computerizing all key investigation operations from filing an F.I.R. through creating the final Charge sheet. eCops is accessible across hierarchy levels and State-wide locations so as to enable the easy accessibility of information throughout the department and it facilitates faster and better decision-making and crime prevention via information collation and collaborative action. Andhra Pradesh Police Computer Services

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Application Categories & Key Applications

Whenever a Crime occurs and a complaint is registered, there is a lot of associated Crime data that needs to be analysed such as the vehicle number, ID card or phone number. For example, if the number of a car is available, it is important that the details of the owner are also available for the police personnel immediately. The ThirdEyeApplication, is a database driven search software that helps in Crime investigation by providing information regarding mobile phones, telephones, passports, ration-cards, voter-ids, vehicle registrations etc.. Details of repeat offenders, if available in a consolidated manner in a database, can help the Police force identify Crime patterns faster. This provides substantial support in Crime Investigations. The application that makes details of criminals, their behavioral patterns and crime history accessible is known as the Criminal Intelligence System. Another application, the e-challan system allows the police personnel to issue challans by post using ICT methods- and helps bring down traffic violations by making the citizens learn that they can be traced easily and thereby helping crime prevention. The A P Police Messaging System provides a customized and secured interface for communication within the Police department. Other applications provided via the intranet are Issue Tracking System enabling the end user to post and track issues regarding IT service delivery; File Movement and tracking System that helps one to know the status of a file; and information sharing links such as manuals of investigation, encyclopedia of Indian laws andAP Police Manual. Many internal Police administrative functions have also been computerized, the most important of them being Police Office onLine Information System (POLIS) Andhra Pradesh Police Computer Services

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Application Categories & Key Applications

that stores and consolidates details of each staff of the department. Some other computerized functions are financial accounting, the management of stores and procurement, the budget management, the vehicular & workshop management system, traffic, passport and immigration processing, file movement and tracking, audit, accommodation, company operations, license monitoring, public grievances redressal, Assembly questions compilation and interfaces with the Road TransportAuthority, e-Seva and other Citizen Services. The PCS is also venturing into working with newer technologies such as, Radio Frequency Identification technology (for possible tagging and tracking a product or person using radio waves), Geographical Information System (for integrating with the station crime history and analyzing them historically and geographically), Global Positioning Systems (for getting the exact location in which the person is stationed), and Biometric data such as finger prints, retina recognition, eye rays, facial recognition and DNA test (for authenticating people as well as in investigating cases).

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Training The total number of personnel in the AP Police Department across the state is over 100,000, spread out over about 50 different units. A unit is either a district (like Medak) or an administrative entity (like a battalion). The State-wide deployment of IT applications implies that all personnel, including Station Writers, Court Constables, Inspector Writers & Camp Clerks, across all the units have to be trained to a sufficient degree, for which three kinds of users have been identified: end users, admin users and operators. Training of such large number of personnel (over 1,00,000) needs a graduated approach with several trainers being identified at the unit level to impart training within the units. The trainers in turn have to be trained at the headquarters and have to be provided support in terms of logistics, training material, schedules, course curriculums, methods of evaluation and feedback, etc. The department has already identified trainers across units and the process of training at both levels (trainers and end user students) is followed currently. IT Training has been made mandatory for Police recruits during their Induction Training at Police Training Camps. This effort of training (which will be a continuous year-round process) needs to be made with properly coordinated planning. One of the advantages that the AP Police enjoys with regard to all this is the fact that most police personnel in the state have a working knowledge of English. Along with class room training, the PCS has also developed standardized webbased training modules in the operation of the above systems, for greater ease of use and cost effectiveness. There are also computer based tests for different applications. The faculty for the class room training is arranged in liaison with the NationalAcademy of Construction.

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Follow Up After standardization, systematization, planning, procurement, development and capacity building for the end users, comes incessant follow up and steady monitoring. If the track of computerization is not well-kept from data entry onwards, it is prone to falling midway. Applications are developed in a manner that allows the Director General of Police to access any latest information / data from any location across the State. The top level management, including the IG, interacts with station-heads through regular video conferences in order to clearly understand the difficulties and issues in working their way through ICT all over the state.

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Where is the PCS now? The concept of e-governance has made its way with Andhra Pradesh leading the country in the field of technological advances. With the launch of eCOPS in June 2002 and later its statewide deployment on the web-enabled platform in 2008, Andhra Pradesh became the first state in India to introduce a state-wide online police network to improve the performance of state police units in controlling crime, maintaining law and order, and in administration. The connectivity across each of the police locations helps in saving of time on record maintenance, in minimization of duplicated work and in smoothening of processes to reduce the workload of the A P police while making it a more friendly organization with better output. What is more of an achievement in equipping the police force to access and deploy data any where, any time and analyse them on real time basis is the extremely cost effective manner in which the process got developed and the wise use of technology and existing infrastructure that kept the maintenance expenses minimum. The fact that the ventures of AP Police have become an inspiration in egovernance has been confirmed by the recent initiatives of the police forces of Karnataka and West Bengal, who have come a good deal forward on a similar road, completing some pilot projects. Other state governments have also planned developments in this direction. E-governance is touted by many as the next great Indian revolution. Beyond the hype, however, is a growing movement in India and other Asian countries to experiment with governance-through-Internet. Governments of all political persuasions will feel the pressure to adapt their machinery to advances in ICT. The e-government environment meaning- less red tape, more transparent regulations, easier interactions-is where all will need to go and A P Police, through visionary steps and incessant work at all levels, have managed to inculcate the “why” of IT in the minds of the police force all over the state. The bold step taken ten years ago was followed up by an implementation scheme with

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Where is the PCS now?

an eye for the detail in a department that spans across 1,00,000+ people. The adaptability to newer technological possibilities, innovative thinking and defined processes and its “long term vision; short term plans” mode enabled the PCS to make its way through the initial years of difficulties and evolve with time. The ventures of the PCS has received due recognition and accolades: eCOPS bagged the National Award for exemplary eGovernance initiative of Government ofA.P. TheAward was presented to the then the then Inspector General of the PCS, Sri. S.V.Ramana Murthy, I.P.S by the Hon'ble Deputy Prime Minister of India Shri. L.K.Advani on 13th November 2003 at the inaugural session of 7th National Conference of eGovernance at Chennai. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) also spearheads a National Level Initiative for computerization of Police Departments for all the States in India. This programme started off with the CIPA (Common Integrated Police Application) that seeks to automate all functions carried out at the Police Stations. The CIPA programme is now evolving into the CCTNS (Crime & Criminal Tracking Network System) programme which has a much broader agenda and includes aspects regarding networking infratructure, person power deployment for operations and Management and enhanced application functionality, beyond the scope envisaged by CIPA. In essence CIPA also is following an approach that was followed by eCOPS as it evolved- from a client server stand-alone system at police stations towards a webenabled data-centre based enterprise application that helps collate and analyze all the information across the State. Further, CIPA faces unique challenges pertaining vast disparities towards computerization readiness across the different States of India. The eCOPS initiative has already incorporated all the above learnings and has

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Where is the PCS now?

evolved towards a web-based application. Further, the Andhra Pradesh Police realize the critical importance of allowing seamless data sharing across the systems in different States and hence has incorporated appropriate technologies like SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and XML (Extensible Markup Language) based messaging in the eCops framework to enable easier future integration with National and International Databases and applications used across the entire Justice Delivery System.

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Enterprise eCOPS: The Road Ahead The PCS is now planning a consolidation of various applications that it has developed over the last few years and increase its effectiveness. For example, a rd synergizing of eCOPS and 3 eye is already in the pilot phase. Through this, the rd details given in an FIR would also search the 3 eye data bank and give details of the vehicle/person involved without any manual involvement. Thus the PCS is moving towards unifying the various applications that have been developed through single access points at the interface and also through synergizing various applications. Such an “enterprise' model of eCOPS will further add to the pace and exactitude of the system. For eCOPS, it is now a phase of extension and rebranding by integrating it with other already functioning applications, so as to have a single platform for the delivery of multiple diverse services. The Intranet Portal that encompasses all applications will thus emerge into “enterprise eCOPS”. The AP Police has already embarked on providing total information exchange capability across all its units. Some of these units are the AP Special Police, the CID and the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau. We also envision the linking of Police Department with other departments such as the Passport Office, the Regional Transport Authority, etc. In the long-term, we hope to link the APPD with the Police Departments of other states in the country and even link the eCOPS database with national databases on crime and law and order.

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Route Map The IT-fication of a large government department needs to be carefully planned keeping several facets in mind. The PCS is aware of the need to have a long-term planning perspective to guide the IT evolution within the department and has also documented a roadmap with the help of professional support from NISG (National Institute of Smart Governance). The roadmap for future evolution of Police Computer Services can be discussed in five categories: 1. Data Centre The data centre remains the key component for all applications that are deployed across the State. Such centralized deployment model enables the department to quickly release newer applications, minimize maintenance costs at the field level since only simple browser-capable systems are necessary at this level and enables the consolidation of State-wide data to help in analysis for better decision support. The existing Data Centre continues to evolve into a better infrastructure to provide enhanced robustness, better performance and 24*7 availability. The scalability and performance issues are being improved by bringing in infrastructure like SAN (Storage Area Network) and Blade servers along with clustering of applications and databases. Security upgradation is done within the declared framework of Militarized and Non-Militarized zones with a clear separation between the internal (intranet) network and the 'external interface' (internet) network. The PCS is also in the process of setting up a Disaster Recovery (DR) System to provide continual availability of the Data Centre Services, in a phased manner, which also requires a good deal of organizational support.

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Route Map

2.Applications One of the focal areas of the PCS team in the time to come is that of embedding the applications in personal digital assistants such as cell phones or blackberries, as these gadgets will fast become an integral part of modern living. The technical architecture is designed to support interoperability. Single sign on interfaces are being planned to enable police personnel to access various applications with a single login and password. Other projects and proposals include improved messenger systems for secured communication, database interfaces from other Government departments for alerts regarding certificate fraud detections, person identifications, security access systems and so on. Further, all the SHO operations at police station court monitoring systems etc are being envisaged. The overarching principle is to strengthen and support the investigation officers in detecting criminal case vis-àvis mere dashboards.

3. Hardware & Networking All field locations (upwards of 1600) have in total more than 5200 computers connected across local and wide area networks. It is important to ensure that the basic hardware and networking are available on a 24 by 7 basis for the police personnel. The PCS is already on the job of trying to bring all the hardware and networking infrastructure across the State onto a standard norm with respect to the quantity of computing power available as well as the uniformity of system software resources needed. Maintenance of this infrastructure is done using local support available across the State. Andhra Pradesh Police Computer Services

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Route Map

There is a need to provide a centralized team and framework for hardware and networking support. A Hardware and Networking Laboratory is being established at the Police Communications Office to train technical police personnel for providing such support. In the near future, the department envisages complete support of such equipment solely through internal resources. The PCS also plans to set up a central Project Management Office (PMO) with a core staff experienced in IT project management, to manage all the IT initiatives.

4. Skill Upgradation across all Police Personnel The AP Police Department has over 1.2 lakh personnel. All these personnel have to be trained on usage of computers so that they are capable of utilizing the available computer resources in an optimum manner. As on date, on an average, each police station in the state has about 4-5 computer literates who can use eCOPS applications. In about 3 years, all the field staff should be in a position to implement the core applications such as eCOPS. On the human resource infrastructure front, identifying, training and upgrading are keys to improve productivity, which the PCS will continue doing making the best of use of e-learning modules such as computer based tests. Since training is a continual process, the PCS has embarked upon standardized course contents and programmes for training of trainers to help disseminate quality training in a uniform manner across the State. Periodic Training-NeedAnalysis (TNA) exercises are being carried out to enable continual fine tuning of such training needs.

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Route Map

5. Internal Team Development for SoftwareApplications Development of Software applications for the Police Department needs to have person power resources to help conceptualize, plan, develop, implement and monitor software applications that help effectively improve the productivity of the Police Personnel across the State. Typically, the conceptualization and implementation support for such application development programmes was provided by officers of the PCS while the actual software was developed by professional third parties. The Police Department seeks to develop its internal technical resources and increase their contribution from domain expertise provision and implementation support to actual development and maintenance support. Such level of technical preparedness needs detailed long term planning for which appropriate training is now provided for the personnel with appropriate technical orientation. In future, the PCS hopes that the internal police personnel will be capable of providing most of the maintenance support for all deployed software applications. Further, these trained personnel can also help build small applications focused on specific functional areas of the Department. All such small applications would be added onto the existing framework of the Enterprise eCops. At a time when technology is growing rapidly, the PCS team is looking forward to bring the fruits of it to the Police force by deftly harnessing the possibilities of new age technologies and the needs of the people, drawing on the lessons of the last ten years.

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Conclusion This document testifies what the vision, commitment and hard work of a number of persons at the PCS have done to take the Andhra Police to the digital age. Its evolution in the last decade also testifies the emergence of technology over the period and wise deployment of it from time to time. We, at the PCS, convey our best thanks to the people of Andhra Pradesh and India for enabling us in this venture. We also hope to be able to keep up and improve our performance in the days to come, for a better society and a happier living for all.

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Appendix 1: Organizational Structure Staff Structure:- The sanction and present Staff structure in PCS is as follows: Sl. No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Name of the Post Inspector General of Police (PCS) Dy. Inspector General of Police (PCS) Superintendent of Police (PCS). Dy. Superintendent of Police Inspector of Police SIs of Police Head Constables Police Constables Core-Group Inspectors of Police Sub-Inspector of Police Technical Asst. Director (Computer) Associate Systems Analysts Programmers : Police Computer Services (Nil) Attached to CID / SCRB (2-working) Data Entry Operators : Police Computer Services (2-working) Attached to SCRB (1-working) Attached to Addl. DGP (P&L), Peshi (1-working) Ministerial Office Supdt. Sr. Assistants Sr. Steno Jr. Assistants Typist Record Assistants Total Strength

Andhra Pradesh Police Computer Services

Sanctioned Present Strength Strength

Vacant

1 1 1 6 2 4 4 3

1 Nil Nil 2 1 3 2 3

Nil 1 1 4 1 1 2 Nil

2 3

2 2

Nil 1

2 2 8

Nil Nil 2

2 2 6

18

4

14

1 2 1 2 1 1 65

1 2 1 Nil 1 1 28

Nil Nil Nil 2 Nil Nil 37 Page 40/48

Appendix 2 : Success Story 1 The 3rd eye has already played a pivotal role in the apprehension of criminals in some cases. The most sensational of these was the murder of Manda Bhushaiah by his son-in-law Appireddy Raju, on the evening of 15.05.2008 at Nellipaka village of Bhadrachalam Mandal. The culprit, who had married his wife, Manda Aruna in 2002, was from a different caste. This fact, and the marriage itself, were a constant source of chagrin to his father-in-law. Bhushaiah never passed up an opportunity to try and break up the marriage, and had furious altercations with Raju on several occasions as a result of this attitude. In 2004, when Raju committed a property offence, his father-in-law tried unsuccessfully to persuade his daughter not to bail out her husband. In 2008, a little over a week before the murder, Appireddy Raju tried to assault his father-inlaw with a pestle, but ended up injuring his brother-in-law. Raju was taken into custody but was once again bailed out by his wife against the insistent advice of her father. On the evening of the murder he had a quarrel with his wife and was beating her, when Manda Bhushaiah intervened on his daughter's side, only to be bludgeoned to death. The murder was reported on the same night by the victim's wife and a case registered at the Bhadrachalam Rural PS. Raju had fled the spot for Vijayawada. From there he called his wife on her mobile phone from coin operated pay phones at various places. He asked her to come to Khammam town and she obeyed. What he didn't know was the fact that 2 teams of constables were accompanying her. In the meanwhile, the SI at Bhadarchalam had opened the 3rd eye tool and was able to get the addresses of all the pay phones from which Raju called. He kept passing on this information to the accompanying constables and they eventually apprehended the culprit, dramatically, as he was making a final phone call directing his wife to a proposed rendezvous.

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Other Stories In the above case, we have seen the efficacy of the 3rd Eye in tracking down criminals through the telephones they use. Another powerful tool which forms part of the 3rd Eye is the Vehicle Tracking System (VTS). Using this, the police can track vehicles that have been stolen or involved in hit and run cases, even if the registration number or ownership of those vehicles is changed after the crime. This is simply because the database contains the engine and chassis number of all vehicles in addition to their registration numbers and details pertaining to their first owners. In 10-20 cases from Karimnagar, Prakasam and Visakhapatnam districts, and others from Hyderabad city, vehicles have been seized at check points from suspicious looking riders and restored to their rightful owners. In a fascinating case, a vehicle which was stolen in one district was found in another and restored to its owner in a third! An abandoned Bajaj Pulsar bearing the registration number AP27 1948 was found within the Gambhiraopet PS limits (Karimnagar District) on the morning of 08.02.07. The SI of Gambhiraopet with the help of IT Core Team fed the number into the VTS only to find that it actually belonged to a Rajdoot motor cycle. The team then fed the engine number of the vehicle into the system and the actual registration number was revealed to be AP36 P2503 (Bajaj Pulsar). The ownership of the vehicle, which was worth Rs. 45,000, was traced to K. Sammi Reddy of Hanamkonda. The vehicle, the grateful owner revealed, had been stolen from Siddipet, Medak district.

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Hit and Run Cases In West Godavari district alone, a staggering 59 out of 92 theft and hit and run cases have been solved using the VTS. A thrilling example was a case registered in 2006 in Bhimadolu. The local police managed to get the registration number of the vehicle and with that they traced the ownership. In July 2006, when they finally arrested the absconding owner of the Bhimadolu incident while he was driving another vehicle, the one involved in the crime had changed hands no less than 5 times! In another such tragic hit and run case in Bejjanki, Karimnagar district, the local SI traced the victim only through his vehicle number on the VTS and was able to hand over his body to his kin.

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Appendix 3: eLXNeCOPS During the Lok Sabha polls of 2009, the PCS team came up with a new module of eCOPS, specially titled eLXNeCOPS. The election process is a period of gruelling work and massive documentation for the police. Every single move needs to be planned, shared and made available. This used to require enormous amount of work, as data had to be transferred quickly too. For the 2009 elections, the PCS team equipped the police force with eLXNeCOPS where a separate election cell messaging system and user IDs, both group and individual, were established. All the circulars, bandobust schemes, daily situation reports, details of force deployment, preventive actions, formats and communications were available online. This enabled authorized personnel to upload circulars from anywhere. Major law and order incidents were logged and public meetings chartered.

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Appendix 4: Data Centre Evolution

System Data Flow Server & Application Infrastructure Architecture Framework

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AP Police System Data Flow Diagram

Network Management Station

Storage/Backup

Internet Access

SQL Traffic

HTTP Traffic

VPN Traffic

SSL / TLS HTTP traffic

Tape Library

SAN - Storage

Database

SSL Terminator

Network Management System

AAA Server

Web Cluster

Firewall

LEGEND

Applications

Server Infrastructure

B l a d e

Application Server

• Internet Access Application

• Web portal • Web Front ends

Web Server

B l a d e

• DNS-2

External Interface Server

Mail Server

• Mail • DNS-1

B l a d e

B l a d e

Internet Server Farm

1000 concurrent user

Internet

Web Server

B l a d e

B l a d e

• Intranet Access Application

Application Server

B l a d e

• AV • NMS • Patch/Update • LDAP • IDS

Servers – IT Services

300 concurrent user

Intranet

Intranet Server Farm

B l a d e

• Web portal • Web Front ends

Database Servers

100 mbps

Perspective

Manageability

Security

Scalability

Availability

Security Arch.

l NMS

l 100%

Managed Ports

l Segmentation

Control Server

control at PS

l Access

l FW

l NIDS

l Segmentation

l Multi-Tier

switch for backbone l CAT 6+ Cabling l 100% Headroom

l Gigabit

l Redundant WAN links l Redundant FW l Switch Redundancy l DR Site l DC WAN : 16mbps l PS WAN : 512 kbps

Network

l NMS

l Segmentation

l Anti

Tier Arch. Virus / Anti Spam l HIDS l SSL / TLS

l SAN

Mgmt. System

l Segmentation

l Virtualization

l Cryptography

l Segmentation

Tier Arch.

l Multi

(iSCSI / FC) storage

l Multi

l SAN

l Near-line

Servers

l Clusters

l Blade

Site

l RAID l DR

Cluster

l DBMS l SAN Arch.

Balancing l SSL Terminator

l Clustering

Storage

l Load

Servers

Components

Based

based Control l Antivirus

Administration

l Remote

l Access

l Linux

l Browser

Desktops