Wipro signs deal to bring IT to policing

Wipro Infotech, the India-focused IT arm of the Wipro group has won the contract for building a nationwide police software that will be used to track criminals across the states. The software is the most crucial piece in the effort to use information technology (IT) to catch criminals and prevent crime, under a Rs2,000 crore police computerization project.

The application will be deployed in all the 20,000 plus police stations and headquarters, connecting them with each other and the New Delhi situated National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

"The application has to be designed so that any police officer sitting in any police station across the country is able to access crime records from across the country," said Ranbir Singh, head for government products, Wipro Infotech.

With the software, not only will citizens be able to trace the status of their complaints and find details such as the number of crimes in their locality, but it will also strengthen the hand of the police.

"Till now, if someone steals a vehicle in one state and drives it across the border into another one, it is nearly impossible to track and trace him.. Under the current system, even if a stolen vehicle is recovered in a different state, it is very difficult to hand it back to the original owner," he added.

The police modernization plan is one of the 27 large-scale computerization (e-governance) projects undertaken by the government since four years ago. Around 20 of the projects have either been implemented or are in various stages of implementation.

Police modernization project will involve keeping details of crimes and investigations in the digital format. Each state will have its own database of all the crime-related details, which will also be kept on the central database at the National Crime Records Bureau.

The introduction of IT will also bring predictive and analytical techniques, currently used by companies to study their customers, into crime prevention. Along with the Financial Intelligence Unit, a software developed by Wipro for the finance ministry, the crime prevention software will put together information from different spheres, such as banking and police stations, to detect crimes like terrorist planning.

While Wipro refuses to discuss the financial details of the project, the win is expected to give the company a leg up in bidding for other similar projects. It had implemented a similar state-wide project in Karnataka four years ago, giving it an edge over competition in winning the current project.

It is also setting up the central databases of five states in India, which will store all the data of the respective state governments including land records, leases, police records etc.. A total of Rs 30,000-40,000 crore is being spent on infusing IT into government, including around Rs 10,000 spent already.

One of the biggest contracts of all, the contract for setting up and running  the central database of the unique identification numbers of all citizens, will shortly come up for grabs. Wipro is expected to compete with other biggies such as Infosys and TCS for the contract.