A senior official on Tuesday brought to light that the Maharashtra prison department is looking to erect a multi-storeyed prison facility in the city. This new facility looks to accommodate up to 5,000 inmates and will invariably take some burden off the Arthur Road Jail that currently exhibits no expansion scope.
Sunil Ramanand, Additional Director General of Police (Prisons), mentioned that the new prison’s idea is conceptualized based on that of the Miami Correction Facility in the USA, owing to the scarce availability of space in the city.
He further mentioned that the Women and Child Welfare Department in Chembur have given the nod to give them a 15-acre plot. If they manage to acquire the said land, they will be able to construct the multi-storeyed prison. He added that Arthur Road jail is overcrowded and thus, cannot expand any further.
He also informed that since the number of inmates has risen from 24,00 to 36,000 in Mumbai in the past 10 years, there persists a pressing need to build prisons. Moreover, due to COVID-19, 13,000 inmates are out on temporary bail, thus the current prison population is at approximately 33,000. There are also several other plans in the pipeline to build prisons in areas such as Pune, Hingoli, Palghar and Gondia, he stated.
He is also said to be seeking an amendment in the Code of Criminal Procedure to enable presenting inmates in court virtually since currently, the accused needs to be physically present in the court to record the evidence.
He further supplemented that approximately 2,300 inmates have received the COVID vaccination so far.
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