If the Andhra Pradesh prison chief had his way, former Satyam head honcho B. Ramalinga Raju could well get his job as CEO back when he returns to jail following the Supreme Court's cancellation of his bail plea.

A report published in the Times of India quotes Director General of Prisons C.N. Gopinatha Reddy to say that the jail authorities are hoping to cash in on Raju's expertise at operations management to grow the country's first prison BPO unit that is slated to start working from November 1, 2010.

His role could well be that of an adviser on improving the infrastructure and making optimal use of manpower, the article said quoting the high ranking police officer. The BPO has already bagged projects related to census data compilation and manual digitization.

Reddy suggested that in addition, the prison BPO could also take on some work for the banking sector that involves verification of scanned checks etc. Additionally, they are in talks with some Canadian banks for a global project that will involve scanning documents that are non-confidential in nature.

The article in the Times of India quoted Reddy to say that most of the work will be done under direct supervision by the prison wardens and claimed that a lot of security has been built into the processes and systems. TCS and Radiant Technologies are the two key players providing hardware support for the country's first BPO, which could well be inaugurated by the Union Home Minister.

This is one reform that Palaniappan Chidambaram should be proud of in his position as Home Minister in charge of internal security as also that of a lawyer who has the power to send people to jail.