Chandigarh, July 22 The Punjab cabinet meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, here on Wednesday, okayed direct recruitment of 305 warders through the Punjab Police Recruitment Board by taking these posts out of the purview of the Subordinate Services Selection Board.
It would help improve prison management by providing adequate manpower. The process of recruitment would be completed within four months, a spokesperson for the Chief Minister's Office told .
Punjab jails that currently house over 24,000 convicts and under-trials are facing shortage of manpower.
The paucity of staff was being felt more acutely since the Nabha jail break incident of November 27, 2016. It was required to be beefed up to check recurrence of such incidents, the cabinet felt.
The high-powered committee set up to probe the Nabha jail-break incident had also identified shortage of staff as a major cause of the incident.
( With inputs from IANS )