New central jail set up in Tripura

A jail with an inmate capacity of 975, arguably northeastern India's biggest jail was inaugurated Friday by Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar at Bishalgarh in western Tripura's Sipahijala district.

Tripura's Jail Minister Manindra Lal Reang said that the new central jail, officially also called correctional centre, is built on 32.62 acres of land at a cost of Rs.64 crore and would accommodate 975 prisoners, including 50 women and 25 VIP detainees.

"Second after the central jail in Bangalore (Karnataka) in terms of modernity, the new central jail has been fitted with several automated close circuit televisions and quite a few modern watch towers to keep a round-the-clock check on every nook and corner of the jail complex," the minister told reporters.

Besides a 20-seat hospital, the jail will have facilities such as computerised management and supervision of jail administration and inmates' position.

It will also have separate playgrounds and physical exercise centres for male and female prisoners and various entertainment systems, built by the state-owned Engineering Projects India Limited.

"We do not want to call it a jail, we want to make it a truly correctional centre," said the chief minister.

The 139 years old existing central jail in the Agartala city with capacity for holding 355 inmates would be dismantled and a science college and a botanical garden would likely be constructed on its 17 acres.