AGRA: For several weeks in a row, Sandeep Kumar (name changed), currently serving in Agra district jail for last 14-years in ongoing trial of murder, often failed to talk with his wife and children, as the software glitch in jail’s PCO would start the stopwatch for 300 seconds and terminate the communication lines no matter even if his call wasn’t received by his family members. The glitch affected scores of inmates across 70 jails in the state.The PCO service was started in 2014 across UP prison, but no authority took the cognizance until first week of December 2017, when superintendent of Agra district jail, Shashikant Mishra spoke to few inmates of his jail during counselling session to know the reason behind their depression.Speaking to TOI, officer Mishra said, "Several inmates of the jail were showing signs of depression, during counselling we found that even after prison PCO facility, they were not able to interact with their families who lived in remote villages. A further investigation revealed that software glitch in phone service would start the stopwatch for 300 seconds and terminate the communication lines no matter even if the inmate’s call wasn’t received by his family members."He said, "I intimated the headquarter about the problem and within a week the prison administration issued an order to telecom service provider to rectify the issue within 10 days, but still majority of jail’s PCO across the UP are yet to be updated."According to telecom service provider senior technicians, a kiosk with touch screen and headphone was provided in the PCO. As soon the inmate provided his thumb print on the screen, the countdown of 300 seconds used to begin even before the inmate’s call was connected to his family. "We have rectified the problem and are updating the software in all 70 jails. Now inmates will get a full 300 seconds talktime. Till now we have covered 20 jails," said senior engineer of the telecom provider.According to UP prison directives, an inmate can only interact with his relatives on PCO phone for 5-minute in a week and the calls are mandatory to record. The inmates are provided smart card wth maximum recharge upto Rs 100. Two contact numbers shared by inmate, and verified by police were feed into system. The inmate could only interact with his relatives on those two numbers.In 70 jails of UP there are around 92,830 prisoners, including 364 foreign prisoners

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