Friday, May 14, 2021
The Maharashtra prison department has put its jail tourism programme on hold till further notice due to the Covid-19 situation in the state.
On January 26, the Maharashtra government had launched the programme from the Yerawada central jail, which is the largest prison in the state with more than 150 years of rich history.
Maharashtra had started the programme allowing only 50 tourists for such visits, taking the Covid situation into account. However, increase in Covid cases due to the second wave of the pandemic has prompted the department to reassess the initiative and it has decided to keep the programme suspended as of now.
Additional director general of police (Prisons) Sunil Ramanand said, “We have put the jail tourism programme on hold for an indefinite period due to the Covid concerns. We may think of resuming it after the Covid situation improves.”
Maharashtra has nine central prisons, 31 district prisons, 19 open prisons, an open colony and 172 sub-jails. Currently, as many as 34,896 inmates are staying in these prisons. A total of 3,287 inmates have been infected by the Covid virus till now since the outbreak of the pandemic in March last year, with nine of them dying from that. At present, there are 110 active Covid cases in the state prisons. The infected inmates are isolated in separate cells or are admitted in government hospitals.
Tags: maharashtra
