The country's biggest jail -- Tihar Prisons -- today joined the IT bandwagon by logging in to social networking site Facebook.

"We have launched our Facebook page today. Our page ID on this website is Central Jail Tihar. Since we wanted to improve our performance and also update the masses about our day-to-day activities, we opted for Facebook as there could be no better medium to interact with the masses then this. It was the idea of DG Prisons, Neeraj Kumar to join Facebook," Sunil Gupta, spokesperson and law officer, Tihar Jail, said.

He said Tihar is the most famous prison in the whole of south-east Asian region.

"It is a role model for prisons in other countries.

Through Facebook, we will inform the public about our new plans, initiatives and also make the users aware about the existing activities being undertaken inside the prison premises. We will invite suggestions, reactions and views from people all over the country," he said.

Along with other issues, the problem of over-population inside the prison premises has been brought to the notice of the masses in their Facebook page.

"In Delhi there are nine Central Jails at the Tihar campus and one District Jail at Rohini (North Delhi). These ten jails have a sanctioned capacity to keep 6,250 inmates.

However, against this, there remain, on an average, 10500 prisoners lodged at any given time," the Central Jail Tihar page read.

Amongst the government agencies to have joined these social networking sites are the Delhi Traffic Police and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.

Gupta said they will also tweet. He said details on its factory products like namkeen and biscuits which are now very popular among the people in Delhi will also find a mention in this page.

Meanwhile, former cricketer Madan Lal today visited the Tihar Jail prisoners to motivate and cheer them for the inter-jail cricket championship held here.

Gupta said, "A cricket match was held between inmates of Jail two and three. Jail 3 inmates won by three runs. When Madan Lal gave away the trophy to the winner, he insisted that we inculcate the habit of playing cricket amongst our inmates.

This information will also be updated soon on the website."