The 18ft (5.4m) escape route was found in a part of Sabarmati jail that houses prisoners on trial for bombings that killed 57 people in Ahmedabad in 2008.
Vital statistics of the six-legged robot with room for two drivers will include a weight of 4, 000lb (1, 815kg), a width of 18ft (5.5m) and engine size of 135 horsepower.
Ch Insp Tim Mairs said that some rescuers had walked for miles through heavy snow, facing "possibly 12 to 18ft drifts of snow" in some places, to reach housebound people.