Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday inaugurated a Police Headquarters CCTV Control Room in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar.

With the intention to enable citizens to file the First Information Report (FIR) online, the Union Home Minister is also scheduled to launch the e-FIR system so that the people will not have to visit police stations for the same.

Under the guidance of Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, important services of the Gujarat Police will be made available online.

Talking about the e-FIR, Minister of State for Home Affairs Harsh Sanghvi on Friday said that the Gujarat government had taken an important decision by adding one more service to the online services. “Now citizens of the state need not go to the police station to register a complaint of vehicle theft or mobile phone theft. Through this online service, the citizens of the state will be able to file complaints online at home.”

Furthering details of the e-FIR, he said that within 48 hours of registering the FIR, the police will contact the complainant directly and visit the scene of vehicle theft/mobile phone theft to complete the investigation within 21 days and then, will send a report to the court. “The complainant will also be informed about the registration of this online complaint and the progress made in the investigation through Email/SMS. And at the same time, the insurance company will also be informed by the police through email/SMS so that it will help the plaintiff to get his/her insurance claim easily,” he added.

According to Sanghvi, the Gujarat government launched the Citizen First Mobile App, Citizen Portal in 2019 to enable the citizens of the state to get some police services online using the e-Gujcop database so that they can access a total of 16 police services at home which included– Senior Citizen Registration, Tenant Registration, Household Registration, Missing Property Registration, Missing Person Registration, Police NOC etc.

Earlier on the occasion of the dedication of the building of Rashtriya Raksha University (RRU) to the nation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 12, Shah lauded the administrative reforms carried out by Gujarat and asserted that the state was the first to computerise police stations and employ technology in the recruitment of the police services.

RRU was set up to meet the need for high-quality trained manpower in various wings of policing, criminal justice and correctional administration. The government had set up a national police university named Rashtriya Raksha University by upgrading the Raksha Shakti University which was established by the Government of Gujarat in 2010.

The University, which is an Institution of National Importance, commenced its operations on October 1, 2020, and offers academic programs from diploma to doctorate level in various areas of policing and internal security such as police science and management, criminal law and justice, cyberpsychology, information technology, artificial intelligence and cyber security, crime investigation, strategic languages, internal defence and strategies, physical education and sports, coastal and maritime security.