Not just NCRB and BPRD, but Union ministries and departments like legal affairs, higher education, personnel, women & child development, rural development, panchayati raj and I&B have been working with various stakeholders like govt employees, state police, judiciary, prison, prosecution, law students and general public to ensure technology upgrade, capacity building and awareness generation regarding provisions of the new laws prior to their enforcement, as per home ministry sources.
“MHA has held regular meetings with states/UTs. States and UTs are geared up in terms of technology, capacity building and awareness generation to implement the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sangita (BNSS) and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA) from July 1,” an MHA official informed TOI.
Given the new laws’ emphasis on leveraging technology for investigation, trial and court proceedings in criminal cases, NCRB has been providing technical assistance to states/UTs and set up 36 support teams and a call centre to enable review and hand-holding of states/UTs for their smooth implementation. NIC has developed apps like eSakshya, NyayShruti and eSummon Apps, for facilitating videography and photography of crime scene, judicial hearings and delivering court summons electronically, in accordance with BNSS provisions. For capacity building, BPRD had developed training modules and shared them with all the stakeholders. BPRD on its own conducted 250 training courses/webinars/seminars in which 40,317 officers/personnel were trained. BPRD is also offering three training courses on the new criminal laws, for which 2.2 lakh officials have enrolled thus far.
To educate citizens on the transformative reforms and positive impact of BNS, BNSS and BSA, WCD and other central ministries have undertaken webinars in which nearly 40 lakh grassroots functionaries participated. Public awareness regarding the new criminal laws is being created by the I&B ministry through the Press Information Bureau, which has has conducted 17 nationwide ‘vartalap’, (conversations), a media workshop primarily for the regional media, in the states.
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