Bihar: Jails getting overcrowded amid pandemic

PATNA: Limited functioning of courts due to the Covid-19 pandemic over the past few months has had an impact on prisons across the state with most of them getting overcrowded as bail hearings have been affected.
“Inmate count has increased primarily because the courts are unable to function in full strength due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It has affected the number of bails which courts used to grant normally in the pre-Covid-19 period,” IG (prisons and correctional services) Mithilesh Mishra said.
There are altogether 59 prisons in the state, including eight central jails, 31 district jails, 17 sub-jails, two women’s jails and one open jail.
According to the IG-prisons, count of inmates across Bihar is nearly 50,000 now while the number of inmates was hardly around 40,000 before the pandemic began.
Mishra said the prison authorities took urgent steps to increase the capacity of jails to accommodate more inmates and ease the pressure on overcrowded jails.
“We increased the capacity of jails at Hajipur, Purnia, Gopalganj, Sherghati, the central jail in Gaya and few other places by acquiring new buildings where some small construction or finishing works were left to house the inmates,” he added.
The IG said with these steps they were able to increase the sanctioned capacity to 44,920 from the existing 42,222 capacity at the start of the year.
He said by next year, the sanctioned capacity of jails would be at least 50,000 as there would be new prions in Paliganj in Patna and Arwal.
“Besides, we will also have new prisons at Jamui, Aurangabad and Bhabhua with an average capacity of housing around 1,100 inmates in each of them,” he said.
The IG said initially due to the Covid-19 pandemic, 18 prisons transformed into interim jails across the state where arrested people were kept in 14-day quarantine before being sent to their respective jails.
“Now due to present situation, the count of interim jails has also been increased to 21,” Mishra said.
In reply to a query over prisons statistic released recently by the NCRB, the IG said occupancy rates in central jails have been shown as beyond 100% because all inmates convicted for five years or more are shifted to these jails.