The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) seems to have busted the bubble of Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi's vision of 'Hamari Police Hamare Mohalle' application as the Ministry has refused to support the ambitious project Rs6.77 crore, saying that every police constable cannot be provided with smart phones but only simcards.
The project, as it was proposed, was aimed at merging 40 different kinds of applications and their interfaces and interlinkages for public and police officers. Also, it would have catalysed the working of the constables as all the beat officers were to be given a smart phone or tablet to stay in touch with the public in a smarter way.
The project was also to revolve around a main component of the project called e-beatbook. With the help of the e-beatbook, the constables on duty were to geo-fence their beats and police stations. The major features of the e-beatbook included allowing access by constables to a centralised data repository of crimes, criminals and preventive actions; ease of beat officer to manage data and also promotion of the paperless data collection and data authentication.
The same e-beatbook was to contain information about almost everyone including leading citizens, Government officers, judges, protected people, VIPs, public representatives, vulnerable children, arms licence holders, explosives and weapon holders, people aiding criminals and security audits of senior citizens and women staying alone. Moreover, had the project been implemented, the application would have allowed to manage data on criminals, vagabonds, ruffian, budding as well as proclaimed offenders.
As updated, the project got dismissed by MHA as it declined smart phones for the beat officers. In a letter to Delhi police, MHA stated, "This is to be informed that while considering a proposal of MHA for revised norms of authorisation of mobile Phones, Ministry of Finance (Department of Expenditure) vide their internal department note dated has advised that MHA should consider purchasing SIM card only and keep a record of its usage. They further advised that no hardware in form of instrument/mobile handset etc will be provided by office."