14,000 inmates, 40,000 fingerprints, 60,000 photographs-the numbers are huge. But, the prison management system at the Tihar Jail makes administration a simple task.

Prisons-together with the police, judiciary and security apparatus-are an integral part of any state as they play an important role with respect to prisoners' right. The Prison Management Systems (PMS) developed and implemented by the National Informatics Centre is an application, to give the Tihar Jail authorities the right tools to enhance efficiency of the administrative mechanism.

Nonetheless, implementing PMS in Tihar Jail, India's largest jail and Asia's second largest jail, unquestionably could not have been a cakewalk. The Tihar Jail houses over 14,000 inmates presently.

The application has allowed jail authorities to keep details pertaining to inmates, which includes category of the prisoner, criminal record, year of entry, biometric details right at the time of their entry, prisoner number, photograph, personal details (age, address, information related to family members, etc), medical details, lodging etc.

The biometric details consist of prisoner's photograph and fingerprint, which are used for verification of the prisoners in case of duplicate entry.

"The PMS allowed us to adopt a systematic and uniform approach to handling information about prisoners in Tihar," said Sunil Kumar Gupta, law officer, Central Jail, Tihar.