Chennai: Seeking police assistance was made easy with just a few clicks after the launch of Tamil Nadu Police Citizen Portal (TNPCP) that enables a person to file an online complaint.
But, people now rue that decreased attachment size in TNPCP from 4 mb to 50 kb has made it impossible to upload required documents to provide credibility to their complaint.
The screenshot of the latest version of the website permitting attachments only upto 50KB size.
“The online complaint cell is of no use now as a passport size picture itself comes up to 173kb. Online complaints will only be addressed after the credibility is proven because the police receive hoax complaints in abundance. As documents cannot be attached now, the officials might waive off even valid issues,” rued M. Kasimayan.
He lodged a complaint with the Chief Minister cell and it was forwarded to Tamil Nadu Director General of Police, yet there is no reply.
Officials from State Crime Records Bureau said unless the offence is grave like rape, attempt to murder, murder, they encourage people to lodge complaints online as it saves their time. However, public say they only have to lodge a direct complaint now.
Citizen Senthil, an activist, said the police stations take at least a fortnight’s time to generate a CSR and make them shuttle between different police stations before they even take the complaint into consideration.
Another resident, P. Sankalp, said TNPCP issues a CSR number immediately after the complaint is lodged and the citizen is updated about the case, whereas the direct complaints are always delayed.
“The decreased attachment size is forcing us to go for direct complaint which reaps no benefit,” he said.
When contacted, crime bureau ADGP, Seema Agarwal said, “We receive an average of 2,000 complaints per month that started occupying large space. To manage the site, file size of attachment is reduced. However, if it is irking the public, it can be increased.”
