Hyderabad, April 15: The long-pending proposal of giving prisoners access to telephones inside the jail has hit a roadblock as authorities are unable to zero down on a service provider.
Jail officials had planned to introduce telephones to check the problem of illegal usage of mobiles inside the jail by some prisoners. The Prison departments had proposed to start the facility from April 1 itself but it failed to take-off since they could not choose between BSNL and Vodafone.
Director-general (Prisons) CL Gopinatha Reddy said because of technical reasons, the service provider could not be selected. “However, I am still pursuing the matter and in the coming months, a telephone service would be provided to all prisoners in Cherlapally jail,’’ Gopinatha Reddy said.
Since Cherlapally and many other central jails have been marred with allegations of prisoners smuggling mobile phones into the jail, authorities decided to set up landline phones, starting with Cherlapally jail. A more recent incident which brought the issue into sharp focus was when prisoners in the Papagni barrack, which houses terror suspects and ISI agents in Cherlapally, beat up prison staff after they tried to search inmates for mobile phones.
Officials also planned to issue pre-paid cards to prisoners and allow them to make telephone calls to their family, to a specified declared telephone number. “However, this system will be extended only to prisoners who exhibit good conduct during their jail stay. This will help prisoners keep in touch with their family,’’ a prisons official said.
However, doubts continue to arise whether this will curtail illegal use of mobiles in jail. Effort to set up jammers to stop use of cell phones also failed since authorities were not able to find a service provider who could give them a full-proof solution.
–Agencies