Patna: Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday recalled the time he spent in prisons during the JP Movement in the 1970s and said facilities for prisoners were pathetic with no toilets and electricity in the jails. The experiences led him to bring improvement in the prisons.
Nitish said all prisons in Bihar will be equipped with video-conferencing system by the year-end so that the system of presenting undertrials before courts can be done away with.
"We think there should be a change in the thoughts and the lives of the prisoners, while they are serving time. This will be the biggest reform and our government is committed towards it," Nitish said.
"Bigger prisons in the country have been equipped with video-conferencing facilities. We are also working towards it and we shall bring in the facility at all prisons in the state by the end of this year so that court trials could be conducted via it," Nitish added.
The chief minister was speaking after inaugurating the Bihar Institute of Correctional Administration (BICA) at Hajipur in Vaishali, which has been established to train officials related to prisons and other correctional facilities. It is a green building.
The move will do away with the heavy security bandobast that is needed for the production of undertrials in various courts on the dates related to cases against them. It will also cut down the number of incidents in which undertrials escape from police custody while being transported to the courts.
At present there are 59 prisons in the state, including eight central jails, 33 district jails and 18 sub-jails. These house around 39,000 prisoners. Nitish also inaugurated prison-ERP (enterprise, resource and planning) system in 55 jails, 56 telephone booths in 30 jails, canteens in 11 jails with the help of remote control.
The prison ERP system involves management of prisons, prisoners and visitors with the help of a software developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC). Under it records on prisoners and undertrials, as well as, information about people who come to visit them will be stored. This will help keep a tab on the people who come to meet the prisoners.
