Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS)

A 2008 terror attack exposed how little India’s police stations talked to each other. Nearly every one of them now runs on the same shared system.

MCQ Questions

CCTNS

17,762

Police stations using CCTNS, as of 1 June 2026

Near-complete nationwide coverage.

Since 2009

₹2,000 Cr Approved

By the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.

4 National Services

Digital Police Portal

Missing persons, vehicle NOC, offenders, nearest station.

9 State Services

Citizen Portals

Complaints, FIR copies, property/persons records, and more.

Built on CIPA

2004-05 Predecessor

The Common Integrated Police Application.

Ministry of Home Affairs mcqquestion.com

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Must Know

• The Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) is a nationwide police-modernisation project. It enables near-real-time collection, updating, and analysis of crime and criminal data.
• CCTNS was first conceived in 2008, by then-Home Minister P. Chidambaram, in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved CCTNS in 2009, with a fund of ₹2,000 crore.
• CCTNS runs as a Mission Mode Project, under the Ministry of Home Affairs and the National e-Governance Plan.
• CCTNS computerises core police processes: complaints, FIRs, investigation details, charge sheets, court disposal, appeals, challans, and registers.

Good to Know

• CCTNS built on an earlier system, the Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA), launched in 2004-05.
• CCTNS creates a national and state-level searchable database of crime and criminal records.
• It enables data-sharing among the police, central agencies, courts, prisons, forensic departments, and prosecution.
• As of 1 June 2026, all 17,762 police stations across India use CCTNS.
• Within I4C, the Cyber Fraud Mitigation Centre (CFMC) brings bank, telecom, and law-enforcement representatives together for real-time coordinated action. I4C also runs a Suspect Registry to help banks decline fraudulent transactions, and 7 Joint Cyber Coordination Teams (JCCTs) in cybercrime hotspots.

Test Yourself

Please wait…

1. CCTNS was first conceived in 2008, by then-Home Minister P. Chidambaram, in the aftermath of which event?

The 1993 Mumbai bombings

The 2001 Parliament attack

The 2008 Mumbai terror attacks

The 2016 Uri attack

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Great to Know

• CCTNS turned crime records from paper-based, station-specific files into a shared, searchable national system.
• This matters for cybercrime too. Real-time, shared criminal data helps track offenders who operate across state lines, a pattern common in digital-fraud cases, covered in SciTech0030 — Cyber Crime and Cyber Security.
• CCTNS supports the Digital Police Portal, which gives citizens 4 national-level services: Missing Persons search, Vehicle NOC generation, Proclaimed Offenders information, and Locate Nearest Police Station.
• States are also mandated to run their own State Police Citizen Portals, offering 9 services. These include filing complaints, checking complaint status, FIR copies, and details of arrested, wanted, missing, or kidnapped persons.

Current Affairs

• 7 August 2026: I4C (Ministry of Home Affairs) issued an advisory warning corporates and finance professionals about the “Boss Scam” — a WhatsApp account-takeover fraud used for high-value CEO-impersonation transfers.
  • Victims receive a malicious .zip file over WhatsApp, SMS, or email, disguised as an “RBI”, “MCA”, or bank Statement of Account file. Opening it on a Windows device installs malware that hijacks the victim’s WhatsApp Web session.
  • The compromised account is then used to impersonate a senior executive and instruct finance staff to transfer funds to mule accounts. I4C called this the advanced stage of the fraud, following its earlier 22 June 2026 advisory on the same threat.
  • I4C has intimated over 58,000 potential victims via SMS in the last 30 days, and says it has protected over 10,000 Indians by geo-blocking command-and-control servers through the Sahyog Portal.
  (Source: PIB)
• 7 August 2026: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs (259th Report) tabled its action-taken observations on the government’s response to its earlier cyber crime report.
  • It flagged that several states withdrawing general consent for CBI probes still hampers inter-state and transnational cybercrime investigations, and asked MHA to pursue a durable fix, including possibly amending the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946.
  • It recommended a standardised, multilingual grievance-redressal system for intermediaries, with unique complaint numbers and automatic escalation of unresolved cases.
  • It also called for a specialised Integrated Cybercrime Task Force with nationwide jurisdiction, and for cybercrime prevention to be added to school curricula.
  (Source: Business Standard)
• On 5 August 2026, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Bandi Sanjay Kumar shared CCTNS’s latest coverage figures, in a written reply.
• As of 1 June 2026, all 17,762 police stations nationwide use CCTNS, marking near-complete rollout across the country.
• 29 July 2026: MoS Home Affairs Bandi Sanjay Kumar told the Rajya Sabha that cyber fraud cases nearly tripled between 2020 and 2024.
  • Cases rose from 10,395 in 2020 to 29,758 in 2024, with online banking and card fraud the top categories.
  • Telangana recorded the most 2024 cases (18,922), followed by Bihar, Maharashtra, and Odisha.
  • The Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System (CFCFRMS) helped save over Rs 11,158 crore, across 32.80 lakh complaints, till 30 June 2026.
  (Source: The Tribune)
• 23 July 2026: The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) detailed its measures to tackle cyber frauds, in a Rajya Sabha reply.
  • DoT’s AI tool ASTR has flagged over 88 lakh suspicious mobile connections, all disconnected after failing reverification, as of 15 July 2026.
  • Citizens reported 11.18 lakh suspected-fraud communications via the Chakshu facility on Sanchar Saathi. Based on this crowd-sourced data, DoT disconnected 50.90 lakh mobile connections.
  • DoT’s Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP) shares information with agencies like the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, to curb telecom-linked fraud.
  • More than 50 SEBI-regulated entities have onboarded onto DIP, for information sharing on suspected fraud. (Source: PIB)