CHANDIGARH: Taking serious note of seizure of around 1,500 mobile phones from various jails in the state last year, Punjab jails minister
Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa on Tuesday said nobody except the jail superintendent would be allowed to carry mobile phones inside jails.
Randhawa also said the additional chief secretary of home department would also instruct all the district police chiefs for an in-depth inquiry into the phone recovery cases by taking remand of jail inmates to dig out as to who provided them phones.
He said guilty jail officials would be given exemplary punishment. After heading a meeting of the senior jail officials,
Randhawa said the proposal for installation of 4G jammers in jails has already been sent to the Union home ministry and installation of full body scanner is also being contemplated.
The minister said 40% of inmates in Punjab jails are serving sentences under the NDPS Act and around 90 hardcore criminals have been kept in the high security jails. He also added 651 inmates are HIV positive. He said the department is contemplating health insurance scheme for the jail inmates. There are 1,119 female inmates and 132 foreign inmates. Punjab jails also have around 13,000 undertrials. Out of 132 foreign inmates, 98 are undertrials.
Randhawa said a new jail is coming up at
Goindwal Sahib at a cost of Rs 194 crore and 60% work has been completed till now. Jails in Punjab have 22,375 inmates against a total capacity of 23,218.
The minister said 10 sniffer dogs would be recruited as part of the reforms to be carried out in the jails department. He said passing out parade of 375 newly recruited jail staff would be conducted by May-end.
The minister said the recruitment process of 210 wardens and 57 matrons was under process. The chief minister has approved the recruitment of additional 420 staff for the jails department and the recruitment would begin soon, he added.
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