Bhubaneswar, Aug. 7: All the 581 police stations and other police establishments in Odisha at the district and state levels will be connected for effective tracking of crimes and criminals.

The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has undertaken the survey for this purpose. Altogether 748 police establishments will be connected to the crime and criminal-tracking network.

A sum of Rs 43.78 crore has been estimated for procurement of hardware and software components.

The funds will be provided both by the Centre and the Odisha government.

The Union home ministry has chosen Deloitte as the State Project Management Unit.

Customisation of software is expected to be completed by the end of this year. Around 12 services delivered by the police are proposed to be included under the purview of the public service delivery system.

For expediting service delivery, the records maintained at police stations for past 10 years will be digitised and uploaded into the system integrator.

All the basic functions of a police station such as lodging of complaint, station diary, investigation, filing of charge sheet and case diary will be online.

The chief secretary, at a review meeting on Monday evening, advised police officials to make data entry at the police station level instead of carrying the records to some other place.

Pilot tests will be conducted in all 34 police districts along with two railway police stations.

The network will help track absconding criminals, recovery of stolen goods and maintenance of case records, officials in the state home department said.

The investigating officers can have access to update technologies and information through Internet, which will help in effective crime control and tracking of criminals.

Besides, the crime and criminal tracking and network system will facilitate maintenance of law and order, traffic management and crime control.

Functioning of police officers will be more transparent and people-friendly through this system, said officials.

For imparting training to police personnel for implementation of the project, 45 training centres have been set up and 22,201 personnel have been trained so far.