“At present, there are 108 prisons across the State including the Central Prisons, Parappana Agrahara, Bangalore. Work on details pertaining to prisoners and staff is being carried out manually which consumes more time.
The possibility of wrong entries cannot be ruled out. But, computerisation of data will make the work easy, accurate and transparent,” a senior officer told Deccan Herald.
MoU signed with Goa firm
The Prisons Department signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Goa Electronics Limited (GEL), a subsidiary of Goa government for a Rs 96-lakh project.
The GEL will provide software required for the project. The data will be stored in State Data Centre, while Karnataka State-wide area network will give technical assistance for connectivity to all prisons. The data entry can be carried out either in English or in Kannada, whereas the data entry in Goa state is only in English.
“A team of technicians is working to complete the project by March. We have already trained three batches, each comprising 20 members, to acquaint them with the latest technology and software handling.
Details of prisoners and staff such as names, admission dates, court hearing dates, visitors’ details, health history and information about prison employees will be fed in the software,” said Additional Director General of Police (Prisons) Kuchanna Srinivas.
Prisoners can access
Prisoners will not be untouchable under the new system as they can also operate the system and get to know latest status about their cases and other details.
They can even enter their names. They can know about dates for their court appearances, parole and such other things, he stated.
The department higher-ups have plans to introduce booking system for online visitors. Those who wish to meet prisoners can see availability of particular prisoners and book dates online. This will help reduce the level of corruption.
At present, we are facing many problems while seeking information on prisoners. We need to write detailed letters even to get minute details of the prisoners.
The project will end all such hurdles, he said.