India's authorities have supported a scheme which could lead to inmates answering calls from the UK.

The experiment is taking place in a high-security Cherlapalli prison near Hyderabad. The scheme to turn convicts into "outsourcing providers" for local firms and eventually, it is hoped, international clients.

Prisoners are being trained in basic data entry skills with jail authorities hoping that they will be able to answer calls and input data for UK services. Regulations such as the forbidding of the internet and telephone within jails are currently being overcome.

Other Indian states are watching the experiment carefully to see how the prisoners fare with the tasks and also how the international outsourcing community will respond.

The 10-year-old Cherlapalli jail is relatively new and only moderately overcrowded when compared to other Indian jails. It is hoped that around 200 workers will be trained in the scheme which should get the green light shortly.