Bhubaneswar, Sept. 7: The inspector general (IG) prisons, Pranabindu Acharya, today admitted that jails in the city lacked adequate health facilities.

During his meeting regarding cases of custodial deaths and prison reforms with the chairperson of the State Human Rights Commission, Acharya pointed to the shortage of health staff in jails.

He said that to reduce custodial deaths across the state, 50 contractual doctors had been appointed along with some pharmacists.

“The lack of medical staff in the prisons was one reason (behind the deaths). This time we hope this will not be a problem. We have instructed the prison staff to inform the jail superintendent about ill inmates and to provide them with adequate medical facilities,” added the IG.

The chairperson of the rights panel, Justice R.K. Patra, had summoned the IG following news reports about an alarming rise in custodial deaths in the state. Officials said that in the past two years there have been 84 deaths in jails. Acharya agreed that there had been a rise in the number of deaths in jails. He said that in most cases the prisoners had died of some disease.

“I informed the chairperson about the actual reason behind the deaths. There have also been unnatural deaths.”

He claimed that following efforts made by prison officials and reforms, the death toll had gone down this year.

“Till August this year there have been 19 cases only compared to last year when five deaths were taking place every month,” said Acharya.

There are 86 prisons in the state housing around 13,500 inmates including 4,500 convicts and 9,000 undertrials.

Patra said he was satisfied with the steps taken by the prison department to bring down the death rate and provide treatment to the inmates.

“We are monitoring the matter and will call the IG after two months to check developments,” Patra added.