Archana Jyoti /  New Delhi

Just two phones are available at a time for an average thousand inmates to talk to their families and loved ones in the Tihar jail which is considered to be Asia’s largest prison.
The  Director General of Prisons at Tihar, Sanjay Beniwal,  addressed the pressing issue during the recent meeting of the National Human Rights Commission's (NHRC) Core Group on Criminal Justice Reforms. He emphasized this insufficient communication facility has become a major catalyst for the rampant smuggling of cell phones within the jail. To address this problem,
To tackle this problem, Beniwal proposed a practical solution: increasing the availability of legal phones within the prison campus. By offering more communication opportunities, the demand for contraband phones can be reduced, ensuring a safer environment for both inmates and staff.
The senior police official also asserted that the problem of smoking and tobacco usage should be seen as a health issue rather than a security issue. “People who have a habit of smoking often find it difficult to quit. Hence, necessary legal measures are to be deliberated so that the menace of addiction can be fought which would also help to curb corruption,” he said.
As per the minutes of the meeting, Beniwal said that due to overcrowding in the jail and the availability of only two phones for average thousand inmates to contact their families was not sufficient. “This leads to the demand for phones and hence the smuggling of mobile phones,” he said at the meeting which had met recently to deliberate on reforms and challenges in the jails in the country.
As an alternative to reduce corruption, Beniwal pitched for more legal phones on the prison campus so that there is no fight among the inmates and neither they resort to smuggling of the phones in the jail premises.
Giving insight into the jail and drawing the attention of the group at the meeting that there was a fight even for the basic necessities due to this overcrowding, he emphasized that “the need of the hour is an overall rethinking of the attitude.”
Dwelling on a range of issues plaguing the jail from lack of legal advice to convicts to issues of remission and parole, Beniwal said that the focus should be on the utmost need for an aftercare mechanism and measures towards repatriation of prisoners into society. He said prisoners should not languish in jails due to administrative matters or because of their poor financial status. In this regard, he gave an instance of how an unemployed poor under trial who was awarded bail but as he was not having a security amount of Rs 15,000 had to rethink his bail application.
He also highlighted how the bank accounts and Jandhan Suvidha accounts, linked through Aadhar, can be an alternative to the surety and requested the Commission to recommend to the government to provide access to the account details of the inmates so that issue of non-availability of surety can be sorted out.
In a suggestion that could help prisoners to live a dignified life after their release from jail, he said that the need for a Police Clearance Certificate for getting a job was secondary victimization. He suggested that the behaviour and participation of the individual while being imprisoned should be noted by the Judge and reflected in the bail record to give some hope. Beniwal also stressed the need for the psychological and emotional well-being of the prisoners.
He also highlighted how the data management is still manual, which requires a dedicated workforce, and Real-Time Data should be digitalized so that the issue of release post bail can also be sorted out.
According to a report,  Tihar, comprising nine central prisons, has the capacity to house 5,200 inmates, but 13,183 prisoners are currently lodged in its different central jails.