One morning in February last year, a policeman came to Tihar jail where the alleged killer of bandit-turned-politician Phoolan Devi was lodged.

The policeman asked the jail authorities to hand over the accused, Sher Singh Rana, as he had to be produced in the court.

Later on, it was discovered that the conman dressed in police uniform took Rana away. The high-level manhunt launched to find Rana has till date been an exercise in futility.

• Phoolan Devi's 'killer' escapes from jail

Now, almost a year after the incident, the authorities have finally decided to have the jail upgraded to ensure that they don't have face such embarrassment in future.

Director-General of Prisons R P Singh told rediff.com that a hi-tech system called Biometric Finger Identification is being installed in the jail � the largest in Asia with 13,000 inmates.

"It (Rana's escape) is a black spot for us. We don't want it to be repeated. The new system has been installed in one section of the jail and it will be put in place in the entire jail very soon."

Under this system, all prisoners and jail officials, cops and workers will have to get themselves registered. The person will have to give the imprint of all his ten fingers. The imprint will be stored digitally in a computer. The person's profile will be attached to this imprint in the computer.

So if a policeman takes any prisoner out of jail, his and the prisoner's details will be available in the computer. Anybody whose finger imprints are not available in the computer will not be involved in any of the jail activities.

The jail authorities have also put in place a video-conferencing facility on a trial basis for the conduct of trials of inmates.

It has been operational since December 12. This system enables the trial to take place without the accused having to make a personal appearance before a magistrate.

The accused can put his argument before the magistrate from within the jail premises. The magistrate and the accused can see each other and talk via video-conferencing.

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A notification was passed in July last year to record the proceedings of the trial through this method to ensure that there was no human rights violation and the accused was given full opportunity to put his or her arguments before the magistrate.

This facility is being used for cases in lower courts. The authorities plan to connect the three major city courts - Karkaduma, Patiala House and Tis Hazari � to the system in future.

This will reduce the pressure on the jail authorities. They will now not have to make daily visits to the courts with the accused whose cases are up for hearing.

Moreover, taking an accused out of the jail meant that he or she had to be properly searched before leaving and entering in the jail.