Maharashtra Additional Director General of Police (Prisons) Amitabh Gupta has said a proposal has been sent to the state government to set up additional barracks in Pune’s Yerawada Central Jail to tackle the issue of overcrowding in the facility, which has inmates nearly three times of its capacity.
As of November 2022, the Yerawada jail had 6,854 inmates against its capacity of 2,449, according to the prisons department data. There are total 60 jails in the state, including nine central prisons. As of November 2022, the total number of inmates in these jails was 40,718 against the cumulative capacity of 24,722, as per the data.
Talking to reporters here on Wednesday, Gupta said, A proposal to construct additional barracks in the Yerawada jail was sent to the state government a few days back. Besides this, there is a need for more prisons (in the state) and the government is also serious about it. All these are long drawn out processes and the government and the jail administration are already working on them, he said.