Bhubaneswar: The Citizen Portal of Odisha Police, launched with much fanfare four years ago to allow people to register their complaints online, finds very less visitors, if the data revealed through an RTI plea is any indication.
The Right to Information (RTI) reply revealed that the applicants have preferred to physically visit police stations for availing various services like filing of a complaint, obtaining FIR copies and seeking permission for processions or protests.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had formally launched the Citizen Portal of Odisha Police under Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) project in October 2015. The State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB), the nodal agency of Odisha Police for implementation of the CCTNS project, has been given the responsibility to manage the Citizen Portal.
The portal asserts that the facility has been launched ‘to provide better and quick services to citizens’. Any citizen can request for different police services, lodge complaints and obtain copy of an FIR as well as track the status of different services by sitting at his home.
However, the number of online users is far below the number of users availing the services by physically visiting the police stations in the state.
According to the data revealed through the RTI application, as many as 2,584 people had used the portal to lodge their complaints in 2015. It was just 2. 5 per cent of the total number of cases (1, 03,208) registered at various police stations across the state during the year.
Although the number increased to 3,717 – around four per cent of the total cases registered in 2016 – it further dipped to 2,351 in 2017. However, it reached 3,919 in 2018 – roughly 3.64 per cent of the total number of cases registered in the state.
Furthermore, it is discouraging to see that only 949 complaints have been registered through Citizen Portal during the first half of 2019.
It’s worth mentioning that the total number of complaints lodged at the police stations is much higher than the cases registered. Keeping this in view, the number of complaints filed through the portal would even be far more discouraging.
Also, the number of complainants using the citizen portal to obtain FIR copies has been extremely low. Only 11 people had downloaded the FIR copies from the portal in 2015 while 35 people did the same in 2016. As many as 53 people downloaded their FIR copies through the portal in 2017 which rose to 79 in 2018.
In the first half of 2019 around 63 complainants have downloaded their FIR copies from the portal.
Similarly, the number of users for other citizen centric services like tenant verification, permission for carrying out processions, protests/strikes and events is also not encouraging. Only 14 people had sought permission for processions from the local police in 2016 as compared to 100 such applications filed online in 2015. Similarly, only 13 users in 2017 and 44 in 2018 sought permission in this regard through the portal. Only seven people have applied for procession permission online till June 2019.
Various organisations including the political parties have also been seeking permissions for holding strikes/protests by visiting the police stations. The number of such applications remains around 10 or much below that during the year.
Some police officials, meanwhile, attributed the discouraging trend to the non-acceptance of complaint copies obtained through Citizen Portal by the courts.
“The non-acceptance of complaint copies through portal is a major reason behind the growing reluctance among citizens to use the portal. The courts ask for the formal complaints lodged by the complainants along with their original signatures instead the downloaded copies,” the officials said.
However, the number of citizens filing complaints regarding missing persons has been rising consistently. According to the data, in 2015, as many as 913 missing reports were filed through the portal. The number increased to 5,493 in 2016, 7,326 in 2017 and 10,710 in 2018.
In the first six months of 2019 around 8,328 cases of missing persons have already lodged through the portal.