Hyderabad jail to house BPO
Bars no bar
The Charlapally jail on the outskirts of the city, which is one of the few open air prisons in the country, is all set to record another first. It plans to set up an outsourcing unit in its premises which will be run by educated prisoners.
At least 250 prisoners will be employed in the BPO, to be picked from those who have passed high school and university exams.
According to jail authorities, the men will be trained and later absorbed by Radiant Info Systems, which is starting the BPO. The prisoners will mostly be involved in data entry and transfer for banking and insurance companies rather than attending phone calls as in a regular call centre. Care will be taken to ensure that the employees have no contact with the customers. Several prisoners are computer literate.
This novel venture will not only enable the prisoners to get higher wages but also train them to find suitable employment in the mainstream after they are released. “This unique experiment will take off in about four months,” said P Narasimha Reddy, Additional Inspector General of Prisons, Hyderabad.
As for the security, he said, utmost care would be taken to select only those who are trustworthy and have a clean record. “Not every criminal is bad,” he said.
