Bengaluru: Prisons, they say were made to reform outlaws by imposing stringent living conditions, but the prisons in Karnataka are places that outlaws would love to live in, for they have free access to all what they want. Drugs, weapons, gadgets and what not, they name it and they have it and life continues as if they are living in one of their safest hideouts!

The recently released Comptroller and Audit General of India (CAG) report on Karnataka sheds light on some of the shocking facts about our state prisons.

The report speaks eloquently about poor prison administration and lapses on the parts of the administrators that has resulted in several loopholes, the advantage of which is being cashed by the prison inmates.

Shocker!

In one of the shocking revelations made by the CAG report, about 44 kgs of drugs including Marijuana, Cocaine, Brown-sugar and others were seized in the last five years. The number of such cases has steadily increased over the years and authorities concerned have not done much to stop smuggling of drugs and other illegal materials inside the prison.

In addition, the prisons also doubles as a mini chor bazaars of gadgets such as smart phones etc. According to the report, 4,437 mobile phones (most of them are lower end ones), 3,116 SIM cards, 1,211 mobile chargers and more than three thousand batteries have been seized so far.

Raids….. what are they?

Lack of surprise inspections of inmates and loopholes in check points of visitors entering the prison premises and several other such factors have contributed to surge-in large amount of drugs. The inefficiency of some of the police personnel placed and lack of determination to implement the newly introduced regulations are some of the other reasons contributing to such irregularities in prisons, experts says.

Realising the importance of raids and search of prison premises, the state government had issued two guidelines earlier making it mandatory to take up surprise inspection and search of prison premises periodically. Sniffer dog squads should be a part of these operations, the guideline states adding that the department of prison has to conduct surprise inspection in co-ordination with the police department once in every 15 days.

Though, as per regulations, the department should have conducted 1,248 surprise inspection and search and 768 dog squad search in 13 central prisons of the state in the last five years, what is startling is the fact that only 130 and 138 inspection and search operations were undertaken respectively, CAG report said.

Manpower crunch

As usual, the government has defended itself by putting forth the same old reason of shortage of staff for the failure.

It has now agreed to deploy Karnataka State Industrial Security Force in four major central prisons in the state to prevent the entry of prohibited items into these prisons.

But, when will this be realized, speculate some of the insiders in the department.

Defunct CCTV cameras

Although  the recommendation for installing CCTV cameras was made by the Public Accounts Committee way back in 2009, the government initiated the process of implementation only by 2013 and finally gave approval to install 406 CCTV cameras at eight central prisons at the total cost of Rs 17.87 Crore.  

The CAG observed that in the six test-checked central prisons, the government had procured 351 CCTV cameras and all were commissioned in 2014. Further, all the CCTV cameras were procured prior to 2014 were installed only in three prisons. Out of the 58 cameras installed in the prisons only 11 CCTV cameras were in working condition.  

The CAG report further said that as many as 43 defunct CCTV cameras out of 47 were beyond repairable condition, the CAG report said.