19 Maharashtra jails have kept Covid away in second wave so far

PUNE: At a time when bigger jails like Yerawada, Nagpur, Aurangabad and Nashik are grappling with Covid concerns, 19 smaller jails of the total 60 prisons in Maharashtra have remained Covid-free so far since April this year.
Each of these 19 facilities has 2,500 under trial prisoners (UTPs) and convicts and they include sub-district and open jails, prisoner’s ward and a borstal school.

The Byculla jail for women in Mumbai, Pune’s open jail at Yerawada, JJ Hospital’s prisoner’s ward, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg jails are among these smaller facilities and do face overcrowding issues.
Additional director general (prisons) Sunil Ramanand told TOI, “We undertook an elaborate exercise of conducting over 75,000 Covid tests on inmates and jail staffers at all our 60 jails in December last year and January this year. Those testing positive were isolated from others in special wards, hospitals, temporary jails and Covid care centres and were provided with best possible treatment. A large number of inmates later started testing negative even though there was a surge in the number of positive cases elsewhere outside the jails. The exercise to subject inmates and jail staffers to RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen tests continues till date.”
Ramanand said compared to bigger jails, the smaller jails are less crowded and better managed and none of the inmates have fallen ill or shown symptoms of the Covid-19.
“We have taken series of measures to decongest state jails as per the Supreme Court appointed high power committee guidelines to release inmates on interim bail and convicts on emergency parole in 2020-21. We have vaccinated inmates and jail staff on a large scale. All government guidelines to contain the spread of virus have been implemented in letter and spirit.”
The number of positive cases had started increasing since January this year. A planned strategy and series of measures taken helped in making smaller jails become Covid free while 41 other jails, including nine central, districts and sub-jails have reported decline in the number of Covid cases, he said.
“We had initially started an exercise of recalling inmates released on bail and parole like other states. We later took a call not to recall them unless the notification issued by the state government under the Epidemics and Diseases Act authorising their release on bail and parole is not withdrawn,” he added.