District police of Firozabad in India have launched a blockchain-based complaint registration portal. The news gathered considerable media attention and brought this obscure district with 2.4 million people to the international limelight.
Close to the national capital Delhi, Firozabad is otherwise known for glass bangle factories. India has 766 districts and Uttar Pradesh province, where Firozabad is located has 75 districts. Given this background, launching a blockchain-based complaint registration portal by district police may not appear a significant development.
But complaints about police at the lower level refusing to register people’s complaints or manipulating them are quite widespread. Given this, a blockchain-based portal for the victims of crime to file their complaints is considered revolutionary as it not only ensures registration of the complaints but also ensures there is no manipulation.
The credit to use this innovative solution to make a difference in the way police deal with people’s complaints goes to the chief of the district police Ashish Tiwari.
“The benefit of using Blockchain is that the complaints registered on it can’t be tampered with as data recorded is immutable and transparent,” Ashish Tiwari, who belongs to the elite Indian Police Service (IPS), said in a tweet.
There are 21 police stations in the Firozabad district, and people can make their complaints from anywhere on the blockchain-based complaint platform — policecomplaintonblockchain.in — using the QR code to be provided by the district police. The complaint would automatically reach the relevant police station for further action. The blockchain network they are using for this purpose is Polygon.
In response to news development, Polygon CEO Sandeep Nailwal said in a series of tweets, “This is very close to my heart… With an FIR (first information report) going on the blockchain, specifically, if people can get online platform to file these with their identity, no lower-level officers can deny the FIR. This could be a game-changer in ensuring right to justice.”
The complaint portal has been designed by a private company using Polygon’s modular blockchain solutions. However, the role of Ashish Tiwari, Senior Superintendent of Police, Firozabad, in getting this project on stream is stellar. Tiwari is an M. Tech in Computer Science from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur.
Going by the problems that ordinary people face in getting their complaints registered at police stations, blockchain-based online complaint registrations can prove to be a game changer. But modernization and reforms in the police department have been one of the most challenging tasks anywhere in the world, and the story in India is no different.
However, with police officers like Ashish Tiwari at the helm, the situation can change slowly but surely!
