With existing capacity stretching beyond its limit, the overcrowded Haldwani jail is now jostling for space, posing a security challenge.
Whereas the capacity of this British regime jail is for housing only 250 inmates, but the present number of jail inmates hovers over 850 in this jail. And the interesting fact is that presently over 90 per cent jail inmates are from neighbouring Udhamsinghnagar district, overcrowding the Haldwani jail.
As the jail officials concerned informed, inmates from Udham Singh Nagar district are jailed here because there is no district jail in the neighbouring district. And the Sitarganj Open jail is already crowded with inmates from Uttar Pradesh. We keep on apprising the Government about the present Haldwani jail situation caused by over occupancy and thereby the problems being faced here time to time. But there is no forward movement on this issue so far, said Manoj Arya, Superintendent of the Haldwani Jail, while talking to The Pioneer in an exclusive interview.
The fact is that the Udhamsinghnagar district does not have its own jail. That is why all the inmates from this district are brought to the Haldwani jail. Had the neighbouring district had necessary infrastructure in terms of a jail, perhaps there would not have such problem of over occupancy here in the Haldwani jail, added the Superintendent of the Haldwani jail.
More importantly, if separate jail is set up in Udhamsinghnagar, it would also save a lot of time and money of the Government, added the officials concerned of the said jail. The Haldwani jail came into existence in 1906 when its capacity was only for housing 71 inmates. Since then the jail capacity has been expanded for housing 250 inmates. But there is no space left to expand the existing jail premise capacity, said the Haldwani jail officials concerned. Now the only solution is to create separate infrastructure like setting up a jail in Udham Singh Nagar.
However, as the Haldwani jail is facing acute space crisis, so there is paucity of required manpower too. The matter of fact is that whereas the capacity of the said jail has been increased from 71 in 1906 to 250 now, but the manpower is same what had been sanctioned for 71 inmates in 1906, the officials concerned of the Haldwani jail maintained.
More so, the space crisis coupled with shortage of the manpower has only limited scope for introducing certain reform progammes for inmates in jail.