New Delhi: The Home Ministry Tuesday informed the Lok Sabha that six jails in Orissa are having inmates more than 200 per cent of their sanctioned
capacity.
In a written statement submitted by Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, it was mentioned that as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, six jails from Orissa are reported to host inmates more than double the size sanctioned against these jails.
The list of overcrowded jails from Orissa include – Angul district jail and sub jails at Boudh, Bargarh, Jajpur, Jharsuguda and Nuapada districts. The most overcrowded jail, as per the NCRB data, is the Jharsuguda sub jail where 255 prisoners are languishing against the sanctioned strength of 86 – an overcrowding rate of 296.5 per cent.
The statement claims that all these jails have been reporting more than 200 per cent overcrowding rate with Jajpur one being the least crowded. The Jajpur jail hosts 267 prisoners against the sanctioned strength of 133 inmates – an overcrowding rate of 200.8 per cent.
As per the Model Prison Manual-2016, the minimum accommodation space per prisoner in Sleeping Barracks is 3.71 sq metres and 8.92 sq metres of ground area in the cells.
No Central statistics is, however, available on the actual space available in jails per inmate, the ministry informed the House Tuesday.
The ministry also said that as ‘prison’ is a state subject, an advisory covering various measures to address the issue of overcrowding of jails was sent to all the states in 2011 for their
guidance.
This was followed by advisories in 2013, 2014 and in March 2017.
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