With the Tihar Jail currently working overcapacity, plans are afoot to construct new jails which will begin functioning soon after they are built. Presently, the Central Jail at Tihar is overcrowded with about 10,000 prisoners — 4,000 more than the capacity it can handle in the nine jails within its complex. The Rohini Jail has three jails.
On Saturday, Delhi Chief Secretary S.K. Srivastava held a meeting with government officers and the Director General (Prisons) to review prison administration. Mr. Srivastava directed the officers concerned to extend their full cooperation in commissioning the various jail projects and directed Chairman (DSSSB) to speed up the filling up of 747 posts of different categories requisitioned for jail administration. He also asked the Public Works Department to clear all construction projects of jails.
Jail complexes are proposed to come up in Mandoli which will have six jails on a piece of land measuring 78.62 acres allotted by the Delhi Development Authority. This complex can hold 3,700 prisoners and will be commissioned by December-end. In Baprola, plans are to construct an open jail without bars with the objective of moulding the prisoners’ thinking towards positive activities by reposing trust in them to enable their re-socialisation in society after release from the prison.
