Karnataka forest department launches 'Garudakshi' online portal for FIR registration

Bengaluru: The state Forest Department will shift to a digital regime for registering forest and wildlife cases with a pilot project in five divisions getting green signal on Tuesday.

Named 'Garudakshi', the software reduces the time taken by officials in filing an FIR and generates the multiple documents, except Mahajar, required to be submitted before the court in the cases. Moreover, the system provides prompts and reminders to the officers for timely follow-up of the cases to ensure conviction.

Forest, Ecology and Environment Minister Eshwar Khandre said the online FIR mechanism will help the department to crackdown on the rising number of forest and wildlife crimes in the state. "For an effective crackdown, we need to ensure that those who perpetrate the crime are punished. The software will also allow monitoring of the progress in cases at each level," he said.

He said 'Garudakshi' will be implemented on a pilot basis in Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru forest mobile squad, Bhadravati, Sirsi and Malai Mahadeshwara Wildlife Division. The experience in the five divisions will help the department to fix any gaps before extending its usage in all the forest divisions of Karnataka.

"Till now, we could not track the progress in cases. For instance, we don't know whether or not chargesheets have been filed in the thousands of cases registered. Such details will be available with just a click," he said.

Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), which developed the software -- originally called Hostile Activity Watch Kernel (HAWK) -- with support from NTT DATA, has been conducting workshops across the state to train the forest officers on the use of the software.