BHUBANESWAR: The Directorate of Prisons and Correctional Services requested the state government to enhance the daily dietary charges of prisoners from Rs 80 to Rs 100 for non-labouring inmates and from Rs 85.82 to Rs 106 for labouring inmates.
In a letter to the Home department, director general of Prisons and Correctional Services Susanta Kumar Nath sought approval to raise the per-prisoner daily diet cost citing rising food prices, nutritional shortfalls and repeated concerns raised by judicial and human rights bodies.
The proposed revision will require an additional annual outlay of about Rs 14.59 crore. The existing expenditure stands at Rs 59.21 crore, while the revised rates would push the total to Rs 73.81 crore, said officials. The non-labouring inmates are those facing simple imprisonment or are civil or under-trial prisoners, who choose not to volunteer for work, while labouring inmates are sentenced to rigorous imprisonment or those under simple imprisonment who voluntarily elect to work. Based on the prison population as on July 31, there are 15,456 non-labouring and 4,496 labouring inmates lodged in jails across the state.
The directorate of Prisons stated that judges, members of the National and Odisha Human Rights Commissions, District Legal Services Authorities and board of visitors have expressed concern regarding the quality and adequacy of the diet being served to prisoners within the prevailing ceiling price of Rs 80 per prisoner for a day. The OHRC had also made recommendations in 2020 regarding the nutritional requirements and rationalization of the dietary scale of prisoners, the DG said in the letter.
A key factor cited to enhance the daily dietary charges of prisoners is the rise in the consumer food price index to 133.3 in August, which has driven up market prices of essential commodities and rendered the current rates insufficient. Official sources said the existing rates were fixed by the Home department in 2022 for non-labouring prisoners and in October 2024 for labouring prisoners.