HC asks DLSA to review Covid prevention measures in jails

Ranchi: With a few Covid-19 cases reported from state prisons, a high-powered committee on Saturday reviewed the measures taken up to prevent the spread of the disease among inmates. The video conference was chaired by Jharkhand high court chief justice H C Mishra.
Sources said the committee has ordered that the District Legal Service Authority (DLSA) members should visit jails and review anti-Covid arrangements in place. The team is expected to come up with proposals for improvement of safety measures. Covid cases have been detected in several jails, including Sahebganj and Khunti districts.
Inspector General (prison) Sashi Ranjan, also a member of the committee, said, “We are alert to the situation and preventive steps are being taken. All accused persons sent on remand to jails are first put under quarantine. Testing of new inmates for Covid-19 has been made compulsory.”
He said the jail administration is planning to shift inmates from overcrowded jails to the new jail at Sakchi, which has a capacity to house 300 persons, and Barhi, with space for 325 prisoners The Sakchi jail has started functioning while Barhi jail is scheduled to open soon.
Ranjan said a large number of inmates were shifted from the overcrowded jails to the prisons with relatively lesser inmates recently. Stating that earlier some jails were packed at 200% of their capacity, he added the occupancy in almost all jails is around 115% at present.
Sources said 100 PPEs have been provided in every jail in the state and masks and sanitizers have also been distributed in large numbers.
The committee, formed on the direction of Supreme Court to prevent spread of Covid-19 in jails, has passed a series of instructions to the administration in its successive meetings. One of them is to keep the number of inmates in jails well within the maximum capacity.
An instruction has also been passed to sensitize the inmates about social distancing and use of masks, soaps and sanitizers.