SMSes to update citizens on Sakaala application status

 SMS Gateway, a facility to update the applicant about the status of his/her application in regard to services provided by the police department under Sakaala scheme was launched here on Tuesday.

Deputy Chief Minister R Ashoka, who holds the home portfolio, launched the project at the office of Director General and Inspector General of Police.

Approaching a police station to know the status of their application for availing a service or a first information report (FIR) was a tedious and time consuming process for citizens.

They had to visit the police stations several times to know the status and, were still not sure of getting the information. Therefore, the SMS Gateway facility was conceived to avoid such unproductive trips to the police stations and, make the applicant’s job easy.

With the launch of the SMS Gateway, citizens will now get a SMS from the police department, informing them the status of their application in regard to any of  the 21 services to be provided by the police department.

A 15-digit GSC number (Karnataka Guarantee of Services to Citizens Act, 2011 number) is generated the moment a service request is made or a FIR is registered. Immediately, an SMS is sent to the cellphone number of the applicant, giving the details of service request, GSC number and name of the police station concerned.

Another SMS is sent to the applicant as soon as the “service is ready for delivery” or a charge sheet is registered in connection with a FIR. The police claim that SMS Gateway facility is the cheapest and convenient method of providing information to the citizens.

Data centre

Additional Director General of Police Praveen Sood said the Police Computer Wing is implementing the Rs 53-crore Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS) project.

Intranet facility

Karnataka police is the only police unit in the country to have networked all its police stations and offices through intranet. The department will also have its own state-of-the-art data centre at Madiwala in Bangalore. Karnataka is the only state where all investigation records, from FIR to charge sheet, are maintained online in real time.

All crime records are stored in real time in the data centre and, all major crime records since 1995 were being digitalised, he added.

Law, Parliamentary Affairs, Urban Development and BWSSB Minister S Suresh Kumar explained the features of the Karnataka Guarantee of Services to Citizens Act-2011.