BHUBANESWAR: The Prisons Development Board on Tuesday held discussions on infrastructure development in jails, including construction of model prisons in Bhubaneswar, Jajpur and Bhadrak.
Presiding over the meeting, chief secretary Anu Garg also laid emphasis on enhancing security in the prisons. She stressed strengthening of prison intelligence units in jails and engagement of more convict prisoners in internal security duties.
“There should be proper enforcement of telephone call facilities to inmates as per the prison manual, restricting them to two calls of four minutes duration per week,” Garg said.
As per an official release, the chief secretary directed to conduct periodic security audit and surprise checks by senior prison officers, district police/intelligence teams and other regular visit by the District Legal Aid Authority, district judge and judges of the High Court, and warned of stringent disciplinary action in case of lapses and dereliction of duty.
The meeting also discussed the various new initiatives undertaken by the Prisons Directorate during the last one year to augment the security of prisons. These include installation of AI camera-based CCTV system with video analytics in 20 jails, increasing height of perimeter wall with concertina wire, use of modern security gadgets like drones, body-worn cameras, deep search metal detector and non-liner junction detector (for mobile phone).