The Haryana prisons department wants telephone facility to all the jail inmates in the State but the proposal is yet to be implemented as certain issues need to be sorted out.
According to department, there are 19 jails in the State and around 16,500 inmates have been lodged which have the capacity to accommodate around 16,000 inmates. However, the figure, however, isn't constant as prisoners keep getting released while new ones are brought in every day. Sharad Kumar, Director General (prison) told The Pioneer that they sent a proposal to the Central Government a month back for introducing telephone facility to all jail inmates on Tihar Jail pattern in the State.
In its proposal, DG Prisons proposed that each inmate will be provided three telephone numbers of people they wish to contact. The numbers could be of the inmate's family members, friends or anybody else. Jail authorities will then issue coupons to the inmates, which can be used for making the call from the landline inside the prison. The privilege may come at a cost for the prisoners.
But there is apprehension in certain quarters that this facility could be misused by the undertrials and the convicts. “When the jail authorities allow these inmates to maintain their contacts through telephonic facility, then there is no need to come out of the jails”, alleged Anil Vij, BJP legislator.He said the State Government sometimes talks about setting up jammers in the jail premises to prevent misuse of mobile phones and at the same time, it proposes telephonic facility for inmates in the jails. "This seems strange”, added Vij.
So far, the Prison department has not decided about recording of the phones, if allowed.However, the DG prisons said that they have sent the proposal under the Jail reforms.