Bhuj jail to be shifted to Galpadar

He said while the jails in the State face acute congestion, the Galpadar jail would be the first to meet the ideal space of 40 sq feet per inmate.

About the existing special jail here, Kadia said that as the name suggested it was meant to house "incorrigible hardened criminals" from other jails in the State, who were transferred here for reformation.

He said his jail at present had a negligible number of such inmates, but since it was also a district jail, it housed local convicts as well as undertrials. He said his jail had 253 inmates, double its capacity. Of these 175 were undertrials followed by over 60 PASA detenues.

Admitting a shortage of staff, sources said that besides one third of the posts remained vacant for years — including the key posts of Subedar (four out of six). Though this, Kadia said, had not created any problem in managing the inmates.

He said a humane approach in dealing with the problems of inmates had helped. He said every inmate coming with his problem was given a patient hearing and then sincere efforts were made to help him out. Seeing this, the inmates never came back with the same complaint.

On jail security, he said they faced danger from outside, as the jail had over 100 pucca houses within 220 yards of the jail’s outer walls. He said the Bombay Jail Manual prohibited this, and their nine-year-old problem had not be solved yet, by the revenue department. His office and headquarters had sent numerous letters for removal of these unauthorised structures. He said the last letter was sent in April to the district collector.