Ajay Kashyap, Director General of Prisons, Delhi, says that Tihar jail is running many programmes to rehabilitate and reform inmates.
NEW DELHI: The Tihar jail houses over 10,000 inmates and is considered one of the largest prisons in Asia. The Sunday Guardian spoke to Ajay Kashyap, Director General of Prisons, Delhi, who takes this as his most satisfying assignment. Excerpts:
Q: What are the major challenges that you have come across as the head of the Tihar administration in the last one and a half years?
A: Managing a prison like Tihar, I have come across four major challenges. First is the challenge of meeting the problem of overcrowding of the jails. Secondly, keeping the prisoners occupied in a gainful and productive way, which is being done through various programmes of occupational avenues and skill development courses. The third challenge is to provide the poor and illiterate with legal aid as they are the ones who require it more than the others. The fourth challenge is working with mental depression and helping the inmates overcome mental depression, because as soon as a person lands up in prison after going through the long process of the criminal justice system, beginning with the arrest by the police, custodial interrogation, denial of bail, etc., there is a tendency to develop mental illness and we are working to help them.
Q: Tihar has been engaging their inmates into doing a lot productive work. What major initiatives have been taken in the recent past to utilise their time here in the prison well?
A: Yes, we are utilising the time they are here with us, to reform and rehabilitate the prisoners, helping them to reintegrate back into society once they are out. Because if we do not do that, then we are basically not going to achieve any results in reducing repeat offences. The Tihar administration is working with the inmates to skill them in several areas. We have more than 32 factories that are working in different jails, such as carpentry, LED factory, perfume making, sanitary napkins factory for women in the women’s jail, baking, etc., and they are paid according to the minimum rate of skilled, unskilled and semi skilled rates prescribes by the government. Apart from this, for skill development we have more than 64 programmes in different jails, in which people can learn skills like baking, painting, fine arts, music, dance, drama. Tihar also has a full-fledged Tihar School of Fine Arts, where inmates can learn art and sculpture, dance, drama, music, etc.
As a measure of encouragement what I have done is that I have made it possible for them to send their work in exhibitions for sale. So some of these paintings are getting sold in the market and as a matter of incentive 50% of the revenue earned from the sale of a painting goes to the inmate’s bank account. So there is a direct incentive for them to learn. Secondly, we are also encouraging and making partnership with government agencies, like Delhi’s judicial academy has given us the contract to decorate their entire building by paintings made by the Tihar inmates. These are being taught to them so that they are skilfully better off to fend for themselves when they are out. Also, this keeps them occupied and therefore they will not be prone to join gangs and do in-disciplinary activities within the jail.
Q: Earlier this week, you inaugurated a yoga programme for the jail inmates. If you could throw some light on it.
A: Yoga and meditation help a lot in tackling mental health. So on Wednesday we initiated a prison wide programme to teach yoga and train our inmates as yoga teachers. This is being done in partnership with Moraji Desai Institute of Yoga and an MoU was signed last year, 30 November. Two types of courses will be offered under this, the foundation course and the yoga trainer course to teach yoga. It is a sustainable and an impactful project. But it is also a part of the bigger vision of reducing the number of mental illness cases in the prison.
Q: You mentioned about overcrowding of prisons and it is a fact that prisons are overcrowded. How are you tackling this problem?
A: As a first measure what we did was to release people who were languishing in jails despite getting bail because they did not have the money to pay for the surety. So we tied up with NGOs and civil society, who agreed to pay for their bail amount. Through this process in the first batch we released about 350 inmates. And overall some 1,000 inmates have been released on bail, with the help of this initiative. However, the main issue is that the state has to augment the facilities here. When I came here I did a survey of the assets we had available and I saw some of the prison structures were more than 50 years old, and as per government norms we could refurbish and renovate them, but instead of just retrofitting them, I gave a proposal to raze these structures (barrack accommodation) to the ground and go for modern amenities and modern construction which would be multi-level and which would be planned right from scratch, having the required underground infrastructure in terms of sewage, water supply, etc. Plus the living accommodation will be according to the expected norms of the United Nations and the EU. Apart from this, we have also started the full operation of the Mandawali prison and some 4,000 prisoners will be shifted there.
Q: Several times we come across news that banned items like tobacco etc., are being smuggled into the prison. What security enhancement is being done to take care of such things?
A: Certain items that are otherwise okay in normal society are contraband in the prison. Like mobile phones and tobacco. And yes, there have been cases where these banned items were found. What happens is that when the inmates are going to court or hospital outside, sometimes they smuggle in these contraband items in their body cavities. We are trying to strengthen our security system. At present we have a three-tier security system, which is the highest level of security anywhere in the country. We are also looking towards technological aid and support to strengthen our screening of movements in and outside the jails. Apart from this, we have also got an approval for installation of a uniform and state of the art CCTV project in all the 16 prisons across Tihar by October this year. This will not only help us keep a tab on the prisoners, but also on our own staff who may be indulging in malpractices.
Q: There have been reports that a dog squad is being planned for Tihar. Is that so?
A: Yes, recently we have got two dogs from the CRPF, on lease. We are examining their efficiency and their effectiveness and if it is a good experiment then I will go for creating a dog squad in our prison system. Maybe, we will have a dog squad of 40 dogs, depending on how it works out.
Q: The new Jail Manual has also been put in place prepared under your supervision. Can you talk about the new jail manual?
A: The new jail manual was notified in October last year and brought into force from January this year. We are in the process of implementing the provisions of the new jail manual. The earlier jail manual was incomplete and outdated. It did not have many things which have evolved over time, like the legislation about disability, mental health, etc. In the new jail manual we have brought all this up to date. The new jail manual also revised the dietary requirements according to WHO norms. So the new jail manual emphasises on reformation, rehabilitation and reintegration, which was totally missing in the earlier one.
Q: So far how has this experience been for you? Is it the most challenging assignment of your career? How different is it from normal policing?
A: No, it is not the most challenging one. The most challenging was the one when I went for UN peacekeeping. But I would rate this as one of the topmost satisfying assignments. As far as how different it is from normal policing, I took six months to first familiarise myself with the domain of work here. Because it is very complex and it is under judicial scrutiny to an extent which I have never seen earlier. Prison is very highly under the judicial scrutiny of the higher courts. A number of directives, a number of interventions, a number of suggestions come from the higher judiciary and you have to act on them very quickly. So this is a dimension which keeps you on your toes and makes you more broad-minded in receiving stakeholders’ inputs.