Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir on Monday said the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) project will help in containing crime and criminality in a huge democracy like India.Speaking at the inauguration of a two-day conference on "CCTNS - Good practices and Success Stories", organised by the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), Ahir said the system and associated technologies can help us get information fast and track the criminals quickly.Appreciating the CCTNS, Ahir said all states and Union Territories should effectively use it to contain crime."The states and Union Territories should coordinate and integrate the various organs of the criminal justice system, such as police, courts, prisons, prosecution, forensic laboratories, finger prints and juvenile homes, with the CCTNS database," the Minister suggested.Ahir said the Ministry of Home Affairs has always been supportive of modernisation of the police force in the country by appropriately funding it and that it has already given nod for developing CCTNS phase II.He also released a compendium of "CCTN - Good practices and Success Stories" on the occasion.In his welcome address, NCRB Director Ish kumar said at present 14,749 police stations (Out of 15,655) and 6,649 higher offices (out of 7,931) are connected through CCTNS and sending data to the National Data Centre regularly, except Bihar.Out of the remaining nearly 1,000 police stations, 894 are from Bihar.According to Kumar, of the 36 states and Union Territories, 35 have launched their citizen portals for providing services to citizens like filing of complaints online and antecedents verification of tenants and domestic helps."Crime record check of applicants of Global Entry Programme of the USA is being done by NCRB using CCTNS," he added.