Kendrapara, Oct. 2: Closed-circuit TV cameras installed at Kendrapara jail have been lying defunct for the past six months.

“The closed-circuit TV (CCTV) cameras, which were installed in 2010, developed technical snags and stopped functioning last March. Despite writing to the authorities, they have not yet been repaired,” said jail superintendent Samir Kumar Sahu.

The security gadget had been installed to keep a tab on prison inmates, but with the system not functioning, jail authorities are facing a major problem.

“We are falling short on manpower to guard all the cells,” sad the jail superintendent.

He said the director-general of prisons had been requested to intervene in the matter. “Besides, we have written several letters to the Calcutta-based company that had installed the system. Though the company has been receiving maintenance charge every year, it has failed to turn up to restore the system,” he said.

Sources said the undertrials lodged at the jail were making full use of the defunct CCTV cameras. They were using mobile phones and smuggling in contraband to the cells with help of some unscrupulous prison staff members.

The authorities are in further trouble with an inmate levelling charges of physical torture.

Bimal Kumar Das, an undertrial, who was bailed out recently, has lodged a complaint at Kendrapara rural police station accusing the jail superintendent of beating him up for refusing to cook at the prison kitchen. He was pushed into a pot of boiling water and suffered burn injuries, the complaint said.

Sahu has dismissed the allegation and described it as “baseless and concocted”.

Inspector of Kendrapara rural police station Tapas Pradhan said: “We have received a complaint. The matter is being investigated to ascertain the veracity of the allegation.”