IANS

Hyderabad, Jun 24: India's first Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) facility in jail will become a reality with the Andhra Pradesh government Wednesday giving its nod to the proposal.

As part of jail reforms and to provide income generating opportunities to prisoners, the government decided to allow private industry including BPOs to set up their units in prisons.

Chief Minister K. Rosaiah gave the green signal for the proposal at a meeting called to discuss a draft bill to use the services of convicts for social activities.

Home Minister P. Sabita Indra Reddy told reporters that the chief minister had cleared the proposal, enabling India's first BPO unit to come up in Hyderabad's Cherlapally Central Jail.

Under the public-private partnership, Bangalore-based Radiant Info Systems Ltd will set up the unit, to be manned by educated convicts.

Out of 2,000 inmates in the Cherlapally jail, the authorities will shortlist 250 convicts. They will be trained for few months before the BPO starts its operations.

The company will set up the data processing facility in the jail premises with 60-70 computers. Since the convicts will have no access to internet as per the jail rules, they will handle data entry, data processing and data transmission jobs for which they will be paid Rs. 4,500 per month.

The home minister said the services of prisoners serving a jail term of up to six months would be used for social activities. A bill in this regard would be tabled in the coming assembly session.