TS prisons to house other state culprits for a cost

Director General of Prisons Mr Vinoy Kumar Singh on Wednesday said that the prisons department would send proposals to the government for leasing and renting Telangana prisons for lodging prisoners from other states which are overcrowded.

Speaking at a press conference, the DG said that TS prisons have space for as many as 6,848 inmates but with the implementation of programmes like Mahaparivarthan, Vidyadaanam and Unnati, the number of repeated offenders and habitual offenders had come down over the last two years.

“Earlier, more than 7,000 prisoners used to be lodged in prisons across the state. The figure now stands at around 6,000. Very soon, we are expecting that we will have free space for 2,000 prisoners,” he said.

Mr Kumar said that the number of prisoners was going down and jails are being shut down because of a drop in crime rate,

Norway government began renting prisons to neighboring countries.

“We would like to adopt a similar measure. We will be offering to other states which are facing overcrowding in prisons like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Utter Pradesh a facility that they can avail of. We plan to take only non-hardcore criminals and non-life convicts; prisoners who were sentenced for up to three months,” he said.

He said that the TS prisons department would charge `10,000 per prisoner per month. “This will offer an income of at least `20 crore per annum to the government. AP, UP and Bihar need more jails and infrastructure apart from additional strength of staff and officials. Comparing with the estimations on the construction of new jails and salaries of staff and officials, the scheme of rented jails would be a better option for them,” he said.

The official pointed out that the department announced `5,000 cash prize to those who pass information of corruption in the department and got two complaints. There would be some conditions applied to the scheme. “We shall give cash prize to the complainants and we’ll disclose the delinquent officer’s name after disciplinary proceedings,” he said.

Inspector General of Prisons Mr. Akula Narasimha and other officials took part in the press conference.