Tamil Nadu

Plan to open more district jails

COIMBATORE: The government is keen on opening more district jails to avoid overcrowding of the central prisons, R. Nataraj, Additional Director-General of Police (Prisons), said on Thursday.

Tamil Nadu is better placed than other States in terms of overcrowding of prisons: it has only 17,000-18,000 prisoners as against the sanctioned accommodation of 20,200, he told reporters here.

The government was planning to open two more district jails, at Ramanathapuram and Virudhunagar. By taking in prisoners facing cases in local courts, the district jails would help to ease the pressure on the police escorting them to courts from far-off central prisons. Furthermore, he said, the family members could easily meet the prisoners in district jails rather than travel all the way to the central prisons.

As for prison inmates testing positive for HIV, Mr. Nataraj said that with the help of the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society, the Prison Department was setting up screening centres in the central prisons. These centres would offer testing and counselling services, besides treatment. Efforts were being made to prevent unnatural sexual practices among prisoners, and they were being released on parole for four days to visit their families.

Asked about installing cell phone signal jammers in the central prisons, Mr. Nataraj said the jammers put up at the Kannur central prison in Kerala and in Gujarat were not effective.

So, screening of prisoners and visitors was being intensified to prevent cell phones being sneaked into prison premises. The government was also planning to emulate the Bangalore example of opening Public Call Offices in jails for prisoners to make calls under the supervision of the security staff.

As on date, the prisons in Tamil Nadu had 17 inmates on death row. The project for furnishing prisons with fans had been completed. Under it, 6,307 fans had been provided to all the prisons.

Mr. Nataraj said prisoners were working while serving their sentence. The skilled prisoners were being paid Rs. 60 a day, while semi-skilled and unskilled workers were getting Rs. 50 and Rs. 45. The central prisons in the State had 6,000 prisoners, accounting for 3 lakh man days, but they produced goods worth just Rs. 3 crore.

The prison department had asked the jail superintendents to submit proposals for opening new industries and cottage units in the prisons for effective utilisation of man days.

Under the Rs.23-crore modernisation plan, work on providing videoconference for connecting prisons with courts was being expedited. Seventeen prisons had already been linked with 276 courts through videoconference.

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