4 min readNew DelhiJul 9, 2026 05:18 AM IST
First published on: Jul 9, 2026 at 04:30 AM IST
The Delhi government has commissioned a survey of the 48 recently-declared ‘urban villages’ to identify land for the relocation and expansion of the capital’s prison infrastructure, The Indian Express has learned.
Sources said the office of the Director General (Prisons) has issued an order constituting five committees, each comprising four members, to carry out the survey.
“The purpose is to identify land for the decongestion of Delhi’s prisons as well as for setting up a training institute,” a government source said.
The three prison complexes in Delhi are bursting at the seams — according to official figures, their 14 prisons together house 19,500 prisoners, almost double the sanctioned capacity of 10,026.
Tihar is already one of the largest prisons in the world. The Rohini Central Jail was established in Badli, northwest Delhi, in 2004 as an extension of Tihar. A third jail complex with six prisons and a capacity of 3,776 inmates opened in Mandoli in northeast Delhi in 2016.
The five committees have been assigned four specific tasks, officials said.
“First, they will conduct a survey of available land. Second, they will identify suitable land parcels for the relocation and expansion of Delhi’s prisons. Third, they will coordinate with the agencies concerned to collect and verify land-related information.
Fourth, they will submit a detailed report along with their recommendations within the stipulated timeframe,” said a top source.
The Indian Express had reported in May that the Standing Committee, the highest decision-making body of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, had taken the decision to declare the last remaining 48 villages in Delhi as ‘urban villages’.
Once a village is declared as ‘urban’, it ceases to be governed by the agricultural land-use norms of the Delhi Land Reforms Act, 1954 (DLR Act), which prohibits landowners from using agricultural land for housing, commercial, and industrial activity.
Also, the village comes under the purview of the DMC Act and the DDA Act, and Gram Sabha land is transferred to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) under the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
Rural groups had long demanded changes in the DLR Act, arguing that farming was no longer a viable economic activity in the capital.
With the restrictions having been lifted, landowners in these 48 urban villages now have greater flexibility to use or sell their land for a range of development projects.
Delhi has both the largest number of central jails in the country as well as the highest occupancy rate of 194.6% as of December 31, 2024, according to the Prison Statistics India 2024 report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
Delhi also has the highest number of undertrial prisoners (3,979, or 11.3% of the total) after Haryana (4,358, or 12.4%), the NCRB data show.
In April 2025, the Delhi Prisons Department had written to DDA asking the Authority to identify and allot 400 acres of land for a new prison complex. The proposal had come after Chief Minister Rekha Gupta announced in the 2025-26 Budget that the government intended to shift Tihar Jail out of its current location.
Prison officials have said that the large population of inmates puts great pressure on the water supply, sewerage, and waste management systems, as well as on the healthcare and rehabilitation programs.
Tihar is one of the largest prisons in the world. (Express file) 
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