Home Minister Nimmakayala Chinna Rajappa has said the State government is framing guidelines on release of prisoners with good conduct in line with the recent Supreme Court orders.
Senior officials of the Home Department are engaged in giving finishing touches to the modalities that should be followed in this regard and the guidelines could be released before Gandhi Jayanthi.
The Home Minister, who is also Deputy Chief Minister, made a surprise visit to the Rajahmundry Central Jail here on Tuesday. He said the officials concerned resolved the ‘regional’ issue that was raised by prisoners relating to Jail Superintendent K. Newton, who belongs to Telangana. “The issue is resolved. There will not be recurrence of such issues once the division of cadre is finalised. The Superintendent is maintaining the jail in a decent manner with the support of the DIG”, he said.
After interacting with some prisoners, the Home Minister said insofar as food, medical facility, health and hygiene were concerned, Rajahmundry Central Jail was performing better compared to other jails. There was, however, the necessity to constitute Jail Advisory Committees with local Mayor, MLAs, NGOs and others to monitor the facilities regularly. These panels would be constituted soon for monitoring the conditions in all prisons across the State.
The Home Minister responded positively to a question on granting paroles and said the government was ready to give paroles to prisoners in emergencies in line with their quota. He advised the Superintendent and the DIG to introduce more courses for prisoners for their skill upgradation and promised to look into the request for enhancing the daily labour charges for different skills will be enhanced from the Rs.50 at present.
Mayor Pantam Rajani Sesha Sai, MLAs Akula Satyanarayana and Gorantla Butchaiah Chowdary and others participated along with DIG of Prisons A. Narasimha.
