BHOPAL: For the Madhya Pradesh Jail Department, the recent passing out parade of 700-odd jail guards could accelerate the process of a long-pending requirement—having a full-fledged Basic Training Centre (BTC) of newly inducted personnel.
During the parade, the higher-ups of the department, including DG-Jail Sanjay Chaudhary (an IPS officer), raised the issue with Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Many other states—Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana and Delhi—have such centres for training of jail guards.
In MP, owing to the absence of a full-fledged BTC, newly inducted jail guards have been trained at the BSF Academy in Tekanpur-Gwalior or the state police training facility in Indore.
“The DG-Jail has taken up the issue with the CM and we hope the government will soon help us,” ADG-Jail GR Meena said.
At present, the jail department has a training centre (not full-fledged BTC) in a section of the new Bhopal Central Jail building in Gandhinagar. The centre is one of the three which was started in 1992.
The centre in Bhopal usually caters to refresher training of 10-15 days for existing jail staff, instead of rendering basic training to new recruits.
“We already have around 20 acres of land near the new Central Jail premises in Gandhinagar (Bhopal), but need 30 acres more. A proposal has already been sent to the Bhopal district administration for the required land,” said Meena.
The abandoned old Bhopal Central Jail (half of which presently houses Electronic Voting Machines) situated in the heart of the state capital will be used as a makeshift training centre till then.
