New Delhi, July 8 (Inditop.com) Indian prisons are overpopulated by more than a third of their capacity, severely testing the facilities and the living conditions that were intended for only 277,304 inmates, the Rajya Sabha was told Wednesday.
Replying to a question on overcrowding in Indian jails, Minister of State for Home Ajay Maken said till the end of 2007, jails in the country were overcrowded to the extent of 135.7 percent.
This translates to over 376,000 inmates.
“As per the data complied by the National Crime Records Bureau, the total number of jails in the country was 1,276. The total authorised capacity of these jails is 277,304,” said Maken.
Some of the measures introduced to reduce the excess numbers include amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code where undertrial prisoners, after serving some part of their sentence, would be released on personal bonds, and indigent prisoners would be released on bonds without sureties.
Setting up fast track courts for disposal of long pending cases and introducing the scheme of plea bargaining are some of the procedures being followed to ease the congestion.
But more importantly, the government has decided to construct more jails and barracks in its modernisation of prisons scheme.
In the last six years, the government spent Rs.18 billion in 27 states to improve the infrastructure and conditions in prisons.
