The JailVaarta Project developed by NIC Himachal Pradesh is the Winner of “The Manthan - South Asia & Asia Pacific Award 2014” under the eGovernance category. The award was presented to the NIC HP Team by Sh. Bandula Gunawardhana, Honourable Minister of Education, Government of Sri Lanka in the Manthan Awards ceremony at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi on 4th December 2014. The award was received by Sh. Ajay Singh Chahal, SIO NIC Himachal Pradesh, Sh. Sandeep Sood, Scientist-D and Sh. Prithvi Raj Negi, STA-B.

The JailVaarta enables the prisoners and their relatives or visitors to interact visually with dignity through video conferencing. This, low cost, solution, having high impact, uses NIC Vidyoportal software to conduct the VC. The prisoner’s relative can use this facility using any PC with web cam, microphone and speaker/headphone connected to it and having internet connectivity. To schedule VC session online interface at http://hpprisons.nic.in is used.  Using this innovative and unique application, the visitors or relatives can talk to the prisoner from their homes anywhere in the world. The entire solution is provided online. The access could be directly from the home of a relative or visitor or from a LokMitra Kendra (Citizen Service Centre) which is located in any of the 3243 Gram Panchayats in the State and operational in about 2500 locations. The solution covers all 20 prisons in the state.

Since implementation, 661 VC requests have been received and 428 VCs have been conducted successfully. The number of VCs booked and arranged comes to more than 31% and 25% respectively of the total number of approximately 2428 prisoners in the State. This initiative is the first of its kind in India and second in the world next to Singapore which also allows online prisoner VC facility to the relatives of the prisoners. The initiative has reduced cost and hassles for prisoners, their relatives as well as the prison administration.

Sh. S.R. Mardi, IPS, Additional Director General of Prisons has been the driving force behind the JailVaarta Project and many other reforms being implemented in the State Prisons. The project was conceived jointly by him and the then State Informatics Officer, Dr. Saurabh Gupta. The JailVaarta project was formally launched by the Honourable Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Sh. Virbhadra Singh in July 2013 and is being used since then. It uses the base data of the ePrisons software which is the standard NIC developed software implemented in all Prisons of the State.