Our Reporter
Dimapur, Jan. 3 (EMN): National Crime Records Bureau has revealed that Nagaland had the highest sanctioned strength (99. 49%) of prison posts in the country, with 580 actual jail staff against the 583 sanctioned posts.
Information on the sanctioned strength as well as actual strength of the staff in various jails as on Dec. 31, 2020 reported that Nagaland (99.5%), Arunachal Pradesh (93.1%) and Kerala (91.9%) had filled more than 90% of the sanctioned posts. Based on their duties and responsibilities, the actual strength of jail officials were categorised into executive, medical, correctional, ministerial and others.
As per the NCRB report, the total number of inmates in Nagaland as on Dec. 31 2020 was 391 with total jail staff at 433. The state reported two staff and 195 inmates per correctional staff; and five staff with 78 inmates per medical staff.
In the training of jail officers/staff (refresher / specialised / re-orientation courses) during 2020, out of the actual staff of 580 in Nagaland, 13 staff were trained.
NCRB has revealed that a total of 8,380 women jail officials were reported as working in different cadres across Indian jails. Madhya Pradesh reported the highest number of women staff in their Jail department (1,115) followed by Karnataka (1,015) and Bihar (1,007) while Nagaland reported 131 jail officials which includes two Dy. SP/Jailor / Dy. Jailor/ Asst. Jailor /Asst. Supdt; five head warder/ head matron; 68 Warder and Matron; one social worker and others; one pharmacists; under ministerial staff -- three officers, 17 non gazetted staff and 34 in the others category as on Dec. 31 2020.
A total of 51,797 executive staff including 4,958 officers and 46,839 sub-cadre staff were actually posted in Indian jails against sanctioned strength of 72,909 at the end of the year 2020. Uttar Pradesh has reported the highest number of vacant executive staff posts (5,524) followed by Bihar (2,243) and Jharkhand (1,418).
A total of 789 correctional staff was actually posted in Indian jails against the sanctioned strength of 1,315 at the end of the year 2020. Bihar has reported the highest number of vacant correctional staff posts (155) followed by Maharashtra (79) and Odisha (62).
A total of 2,232 medical staff were actually posted in Indian jails against a sanctioned strength of 3,316 at the end of the year 2020. Uttar Pradesh has reported the highest number of vacant medical staff posts (191) followed by Jharkhand (113) and Bihar (113).
As on Dec.31, 2020 a total of 4, 88,511 inmates were lodged in various jails of the country. The actual strength of executive jail staff was 51,797 in various prisons. Among all the states, Jharkhand has reported the highest number of inmates (22) for each staff in their jail (965 jail staff, 22,190 inmates) followed by Uttar Pradesh (19) for each staff in their jails (5,517 jail staff, 1,07,395 inmates) and Assam (11) for each staff in their jails (824 jail staff, 9,274 inmates).
It may be noted that the number of inmates per official is a real indicator of how well inmates are looked after in the prisons.