Context

• The Ministry of Home Affairs has provided financial assistance to the States and Union Territories (UTs) for E-Prisons Project and all funds have been released to them.  

About E-Prisons Project

• It aims at computerization of the functioning of prisons in the country and has been operationalised in all States and Union Territories.
• The e-Prisons application suite integrates all the activities related to prison and prisoner management. 
• The E-Prisons application suite has been developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC), Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY).
• It provides vital information about the inmates lodged in the prisons in a real-time environment to the courts, prison officials and other entities involved in the Criminal Justice System. It facilitates online visit requests and grievance redressal. 

Purpose of E-Prisons Project

• The e-Prisons data has been integrated with Police and Court system under the Inter-operable Criminal Justice System.
• The e-Prisons uses data maintained by the States and Union Territories on the National Prisons Information Portal as per protocols notified for e-Prisons.
• The system can be accessed through the secure National Informatics Centre (NIC) network, exclusively by the authorized officials of Law Enforcement Agencies and Prisons, through Inter-operable Criminal Justice System (ICJS).
• The scope of this project is to computerize and integrate all the activities related to prison and prisoner management in the jail.
• It provides vital information about the inmates, lodged in the prisons, in real time environment to the prison officials and other entities, involved in Criminal Justice System.
• It also facilitates online visit request and grievance redressal.

Components of E-Prisons Project

• e-Prisons MIS: Management Information System used at the prisons for their day to day regular activities; The major modules of ePrisons MIS are:
  • Prisoner Information Management System (PIMS);
  • Visitor Management System (eVisitor);
  • Hospital Management System (eHospital);
  • Legal Aid Management System;
  • Inventory Management System;
  • Prison Management System (PMS);
  • Police Intelligence System;
  • Court Monitoring; and
  • Kiosk Information
• NPIP: National Prisons Information Portal is a citizen centric portal showing statistical data of various prisons in the country
  • Visitors can book there visit request to meet their ward inside the prison through this portal;
  • Grievances with respect to their wards inside the prisons can also submitted through the portal; and
  • This portal also provides with inmate tracking facilities in a secured way to various investigating agencies.
• Kara Bazaar: Portal for showcasing and selling the products manufactured in various prisons of the country by inmates.
  • Necessary platform required for on boarding for all the state prison departments are in place.

About Inter-operable Criminal Justice System (ICJS)

• It is a common platform for information exchange and analytics of all the pillars of the criminal justice system comprising of Police, Forensics, Prosecution, Courts & Prisons.
• It enables a nationwide search on police, prisons & courts databases across all States/ UTs in the country.
• It is invested under the CCTNS project of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

• Its aim is to reduce errors and time taken in sharing of necessary information between the pillars, which often lead to larger challenges.

Source: PIB

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