107 posts created in Prisons Dept

Shimla, November 21

Creation of 107 posts for the Prison Department has come as a windfall and filling of 84 vacancies will strengthen manpower and the problem of 25 per cent vacancies at the warden level have been addressed to a great extent said Somesh Goyal, Director-General (Prisons and Correctional Services). The manpower will be uitlised in the upcoming new jails at Kalpa, Nurpur, Kullu , Mandi and Rampur, besides new barracks with a capacity of 140 beds have been built in various jails, he said adding that at present, there were only six female wardens and now the number of female wardens would increase to 22.

"The state jails are better placed in terms of overcrowding, which is just 10 per cent. Women inmates constitutes four per cent of the total inmates, but there is only one female prison officer so, we have done away with the “gender” in recruitment of prison staff as it was a general view that recruiting more woman officers in prisons will help the women inmates, Goyal said.

As per the data of the National Crime Record Bureau (2015), there are 4,19,623 prisoners, including 17,834 women inmates lodged in 1,401 jails in the country and even the Supreme Court recently commented that “prisoners cannot be kept in jails like animals," after it was informed that over 1,300 jails were overcrowded to the extent of 150 to 600 per cent.

“Above 66 per cent of the women in jails are undertrials” and as such there is a dire need to recruit women in prison services”, this was the outcome of the two-day conference on “Women in detention and access to justice” held in October this year. — TNS