On the afternoon of Thursday 19th September 2013 Shri Narendra Modi launched the eGujCop project, which is a unique system that integrates IT into the working of the Home Department. Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister urged officials to derive maximum benefit of the initiative and expressed confidence that just like the police uniform gives a sense of safety to the people, this initiative will prevent wrongdoers from committing wrongs in society. He stated, “The strength from this application will be much more than holding AK 47s for our police force.” The Programme and the Chief Minister’s speech was heard by police and home guard officials across Gujarat.
Shri Modi described technology as a means to provide easy and effective governance and that he hoped to increase the trust of the people in the police through this eGujCop project. Shri Modi pointed that another aspect the Government is trying to achieve through this initiative is simplification. He pointed that the number of paperwork in police department is more than that of other departments also and this can be a step towards changing that.
He affirmed that the eGujCop project will help in crime detection as it would enable police officials to easily obtain entire case histories to nail the habitual offenders.
The Chief Minister talked about integrative governance and how one initiative can lead to a difference even in other spheres. Giving an example he said, “When we were working on Jyotigram Yojana, we knew it was not only about electricity. Once Jyotigram happens, so many other things happen. Due to power we could work on broadband connectivity. We could achieve long distance education.”
Talking about the police reforms in the state Shri Modi affirmed, “After infrastructure we focused on manpower. We worked on how to get the youngest and most techno savvy police force for the state. Due to that we changed the recruitment guidelines and the result is we have a techno savvy police force.”
Expressing confidence about the eGujCop project Shri Modi said, “This project will add a lot of strength. A lot can happen. Take the case of our Forensic Lab. Once its data attached with this, a big difference can take place.”
Urging the officers of the police force to take interest in technology the Chief Minister affirmed, “Let us take interest in technology. Let us learn this the way we learnt using mobile phones, What’s App and SMS. Let us derive maximum benefit from this and make a big contribution.”
Present during the function were Minister of State for Home Shri Rajnibhai Patel, Additional Chief Secretary Home Shri SK Nanda, Acting DGP Shri Pramod Kumar, Principal Secretary DST Shri Haidar among other dignitaries.
More About eGujCop
eGujCop is the integration of IT systems in the working of the Home Department. It is a big initiative in terms of scale. It has a wide coverage, available at over 1100 locations including 450 police stations, 59 CPI offices, 35 CP/SP offices and 60 SDPOs. The projects will enable improved transparency and better efficiency. It will eliminate duplicate records, which will save a lot of time. It will enable fingerprint identification.
The initiative will give several benefits to the citizens. Through ‘Citizen Portal Service’ citizens can request police services online as well. Citizens can access details of missing persons as well as details of stolen vehicles. They can view the progress of their cases online and download important forms and certificates. Citizens can also apply for various permissions like verification, licenses and view progress of their applications online.