Mumbai, July 9 (IANS) Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Wednesday that the jails in the state are overcrowded with prisoners as compared to their actual capacity.

In a written reply, Chief Minister Fadnavis, who holds the Home Department portfolio, told the Legislative Council that against the total capacity of 27,184 prisoners in the state’s jails by May 2025, the total number of prisoners is 39,527.

There were 12,343 more prisoners currently in the jails, the Chief Minister said.

The query about overcrowding of jails was raised by Congress legislator Satej Patil and others.

The reply said that the official prisoner capacity of Mumbai Central Jail is 999.

“But by May 2025, the total number of prisoners is 3,268. Despite the exceptional hike in the number of prisoners, the prison administration is taking necessary steps to provide basic facilities and prisoners are regularly taking the benefits of it,” the reply noted.

Among the facilities provided to the prisoners include video-conference, television, water cooler with purifiers, washing machine, smart card telephone, e-kiosk etc.

The Home Department told the State Legislative Council that of the 39,527 prisoners, a total of 6,003 are illiterate and among those 5,067 are undertrials.

The reply said that under the ‘support to poor prisoners’ scheme, financial aid is given to economically weak prisoners to pay fines or bail amounts.

“To solve the problems of overcrowding of prisoners, steps such as building new jails, making land available to build new jails and constructing new barracks in the existing jails are being taken. The capacity of state’s jails will be officially increased by 17,110 after the ongoing construction works of new jails and new barracks are completed,” the reply said, adding that the process of land acquisition to construct a new jail in Mumbai is ongoing.

Earlier, Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court in May this year expressed serious concern over the overcrowding of jails in the state.

The High Court observed that nearly every prison in the state is overcrowded and the number of inmates lodged is double than the sanctioned capacity.

The High Court also said that the staff to inmate ratio is alarming, adding that the number of sanctioned staff is inadequate and vacancies will further worsen the situation.

–IANS

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