Rajiv Kumar Singh receives the appointment letter from home department principal secretary Amir Subhani at a function in Patna on Wednesday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, Nov. 6: Gyanita Gaurav, a resident of Gardanibagh in Patna, left her job with a nationalised bank to join as a jail superintendent on Wednesday.

She got her appointment letter from home department principal secretary Amir Subhani at a function organised by the prison directorate in Patna on Wednesday. Gaurav, who used to work as a probationary officer in the Union Bank of India, resigned last week. A product of the Delhi School of Economics, Gaurav would be the second woman jail superintendent after Illa Issar, who, till recently, was serving as the superintendent of Hajipur divisional jail.

Gaurav’s father, a senior railway official, lauded the government’s initiative to fill up the vacant posts in the state jails to tide over the staff crunch.

“I advised my daughter, who had joined as a probationary officer in a bank in April this year, to quit the job even though we had to deposit Rs 2 lakh in the bank to get her release,” he said.

Gaurav’s family hails from Nalanda, the native district of chief minister Nitish Kumar. Like her, a lot of others also accepted appointment letters from the home department and became jail superintendents on Wednesday.

Brajesh Mehta was also serving as a probationary officer in the State Bank of India. A native of Aurangabad district, Mehta, too, resigned and accepted the offer to become a jail superintendent. “Though I was posted in Patna, I preferred to serve the prison department,” he said.

Similarly, Sandeep Kumar and Sanjeev Kumar, who were serving in the Intelligence Bureau and the central secretariat (New Delhi), respectively, were appointed as jail superintendents.

While Sandeep hails from Muzaffarpur, Sanjeev is a native of Bettiah in West Champaran.

Niranjan Pandey, from Bhagalpur, left a job with the railways to become a jail superintendent. Pandey was posted as permanent way inspector in Andhra Pradesh.

Inspector-general (prisons and correctional services) Anand Kishor said: “A total of 465 personnel, including 10 jail superintendents and 49 probationary officers, were given appointment letters at the function, the first of its kind in the state.”

He added: “The posts were vacant for long. It took nearly a year to complete the appointment process, which began after a new jail manual was introduced in Bihar in December 2012. The appointments have been made after a long gap.”