900 LED TVs to be installed in UP jails

Lucknow: Prisoners lodged in Uttar Pradesh jails will soon be able to enjoy programmes on latest LED televisions.

“With a view to providing education and entertainment to prisoners, we are going to install LED TVs in 64 jails (out of the total 72 jails in UP). The government has sanctioned Rs 3.37 crore to purchase 900 LED TVs,” IG Prisions, PK Mishra told PTI Sunday.

The tenders for the same have been floated and by November 30, the LEDs will be installed. As per the plans, a maximum of 30 LED TVs will be installed in Lucknow and Gautam Budh Nagar jails each, while Bareilly Central and district jails will get 20 LEDs each. For Moradabad, Azamgarh, Etawah, Varanasi, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Sitapur and Kheri jails 25 LED TVs each will be installed.

The jail authorities said the LED TV sets will be made available to the prisoners so that they are able to watch TV together during specific hours when informative shows and programmes will be shown for entertainment purposes. In a bid to provide better facilities to inmates, the jail department is also setting up modular kitchens with latest cooking tools.

Inmates in many jails of the state are no longer cooking food the traditional way, as modular kitchens have become operational in 25 districts of UP. Bijnor jail was the first to be equipped with a modern kitchen. “The jail department has started modular kitchens in 25 districts with an expenditure of Rs 4.71 crore in the first phase”, Mishra told PTI.

Since the time of British rule, food inside prisons was cooked by inmates the traditional way even in extreme winter or summer, affecting the health of prisoners. Due to this, a scheme to modernise jail kitchens was started in the state, he said.

The new kitchens are equipped with tools to knead flour and prepare chapattis on a large scale in roti makers, besides there are potato peelers, vegetable cutters and chimneys, he said.

In the first phase, 25 jail kitchens have been mechanised and in the days to come all 72 jails of the state will be covered. The main advantage of this scheme is that food is prepared under hygienic conditions as it is not touched by hand.

According to officials in the last financial year, the UP government had taken up this initiative of modernising kitchens by equipping them with modern gadgets, including electric chimneys, vegetable cutters, roti makers, wheat cleansing machines, etc.