Bihar jail manual to be amended after 87 years

Bihar Jail Manual would be amended after 87 years to categorise the inmates as per their offence and educational qualification, chief minister Nitish Kumar said. 

The jail manual was last modified in 1925. Young offenders aged between 18 and 21 will be seperately housed from notorious criminals so that the former do not mingle with hardened criminals and can be reformed as part of the rehabilitation programmme for prisoners, home department sources said. 

The jail superintendents were also directed to take photographs of all the inmates, their finger prints and have their voice recorded for preparing a complete data base of the prisoners. 

Announcing that all the 54 jails across the state would be computerised, Kumar who held a review meeting of the state home (Prison) department yesterday, asked the jail administration to install modern gadgets through which prisoners could get information about their court appearance dates simply by touching a screen. 

The district magistrates were asked to hold an interactive meeting 'Bandi Darbar' every two months for redressing their grievances. 

An emergency squad will also be constituted in jails to train inmates to face emergency. 

The CM also directed the IG(prison) to revise the rate of remuneration of prisoners against tasks carried out during their incarceration, fill the vacant posts and grant promotions to jail staff, sources added. 

Kumar stressed on installation of CCTV and advance cadgets for security in and around the jails and other infrastructure like night vision devices, central control room and video conferencing system.