Himachal's JailVaarta project wins Manthan Award 2014

Himachal Pradesh Prisons department's "JailVaarta" project which enables prisoners to interact with their relatives through video conferencing, has been awarded "The Manthan-South Asia and Asia pacific Award 2014".
The "JailVaarta" software solution developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC) Himachal Pradesh and Prison department, has been given the award under e-governance category.
This low-cost solution uses NIC video portal software to conduct video conferencing and prisoners' relatives can use this facility using any computer with web camera, microphone or headphones connected to it through the internet, Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) S R Mardi said.
This facility saves time and money of relatives and chances of contraband, illegal items being passed on to the prisoner are completely eliminated.

Himachal prison department is the first in the country to provide video conferencing facility to prison inmates and so far about 1,100 video conferencing requests have been received, including 52 requests from the UK and 22 from Finland.
Investigation officers can also question the undertrials through JailVaarta, in which all security features have been incorporated. The facility is provided free of cost to the prisoners.

The prison department website is a part of a web portal of interoperable criminal justice system of the state which has been developed for speedy justice by facilitating data exchange between courts, police, prosecution, jails and forensic laboratories.

The award was presented to the team by Sri Lankan Education minister Bandula Gunawardhana in the Manthan award ceremony held in New Delhi recently, Mardi said.
This interoperable criminal justice system was earlier conferred the Skoch Order of merit-digital inclusion during the conference on digital India held in New Delhi on September 19 and 20 this year, Mardi added.
Prisoners using video conferencing have hailed the facility.
"I saw my daughters for the first time after their birth through video conferencing and felt that they are so close to me," said Amit Sharma, a prisoner.