A renewed effort to address the city’s severe prison overcrowding has led the Maharashtra home department to identify the former BSNL telecom factory land in Deonar as a potential site for constructing a third prison facility. The move has been prompted by concerns over the inadequacy of previously allotted land and the urgent need for expansion of the city’s correctional infrastructure.
Land in Mandale village, Turbhe, had earlier been sanctioned for the construction of a vertical jail. While 2.05 hectares were provided, the jails department had initially requested five hectares to meet space requirements. A major portion of that land was later appropriated by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) for use as a metro car shed. As a result, the remaining land was considered insufficient by prison authorities.
The suitability of the Mandale site was further questioned due to its marshy nature and classification under the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ), which restricts construction. In response, a formal request has been submitted by the home department to the urban development department, asking for the reclassification of the Deonar telecom factory land, which had once been used for manufacturing telephone equipment and cables, but is now defunct.
Efforts are also being made to secure the transfer of the 1,84,059 square metre Deonar plot from the central government. Senior officials are expected to review the proposal in the coming weeks. Contact with MTNL’s senior management could not be established, as their phones remained unreachable. A source within the urban development department confirmed that the request for reclassification had not yet been placed before the additional chief secretary. Mumbai’s central correctional facility, Arthur Road Jail, was designed for 804 inmates but regularly houses over 2,500, raising serious concerns about inmate safety, hygiene, and logistics. To ease the burden, prisoners are frequently transferred to other facilities such as Taloja and Thane jails. Byculla jail continues to house both women and men charged with minor offences.
A proposal for a new jail in Manori had previously been rejected due to poor accessibility, as the area could only be reached by ferry, making it unviable for transporting undertrials to court. In light of this, officials are now evaluating land in Goregaon’s Pahadi area as an alternative. With rising prisoner numbers and limited capacity, the expansion of Mumbai’s prison network is being treated as a pressing priority, and the repurposing of existing public land is being actively pursued to meet this demand.
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