Telangana CID launches six digital initiatives to modernise policing

Director General of Police C.V. Anand along with DG (Law and Order) Mahesh Bhagwat, CID DG Charu Sinha, PCS ADGP Akun Sabharwal, IG (P&L) Gajarao Bhupal and other senior officers with the book on Standard Operating Procedures for investigating officers.

Telangana Police have launched six digital initiatives, including a citizen feedback centre, a case-management platform for survivors of violence, a mobile facial recognition application and a system to monitor the release of prisoners, to improve police services and strengthen criminal investigations.

Director General of Police C.V. Anand inaugurated the initiatives at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headquarters in Hyderabad on Wednesday (October 28). Senior officials, including DG (Law and Order) Mahesh Bhagwat, CID DG Charu Sinha, PCS ADGP Akun Sabharwal, IG (P&L) Gajarao Bhupal and others, attended the event.

The Citizen Feedback Centre (CFC) has been established to collect direct feedback from citizens who have recently used police services, including filing petitions and FIRs, e-Challan services and passport verification. The initiative is aimed at assessing public experiences and improving service delivery.

The Women Safety Wing’s Bharosa software will connect all 35 Bharosa Centres through a unified digital case file, tracking each survivor’s journey from initial contact to closure. It covers registration, counselling, medical, legal and rehabilitation support. The platform replaces paper-based registers with statewide live dashboards and provides 23 standard reports on demand.

The CID also launched its official website, making information about the department available to the public as part of its digital modernisation efforts.

Another initiative, the Jail Release Monitoring System, integrates the National Informatics Centre’s e-Prisons platform with the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) to improve coordination between prisons and police. It enables automated monitoring of prisoner releases, SMS alerts to concerned police stations and officers, statewide dashboards, AI-based analytics and prisoner searches. Automated data synchronisation and crime classification are intended to support investigations and help identify criminal networks.

The Mobile Face Search application, an Android-based facial recognition tool, is supported by a database of more than 9.8 lakh photographs and delivers matching results in approximately 15 seconds. It is intended to assist field personnel in identifying suspects, deceased persons, unidentified bodies and missing persons.

The DGP also released five volumes of Standard Operating Procedures for investigating officers, covering bodily offences, property offences, crimes against women and children, special and local laws, and other offences. The manuals are intended to standardise investigative procedures, improve the quality of investigations and strengthen the prospects of securing convictions.

According to the police, the initiatives are aimed at making services more transparent, accountable and efficient while equipping officers with technology and standardised procedures to improve investigations and public service delivery.