A correctional facility is basically expected to serve two fundamental purposes. First, it should rehabilitate those in its custody, and second, it should prevent further criminal activity. Two separate reports in this newspaper, one on Sunday and another on Tuesday, exposed how Central Jail at Colvale is failing on both counts. What was built as a modern prison in North Goa now appears to have become a hub of institutional corruption, illicit trade, extortion and criminal coordination.
The new revelations at the jail premises point to a thriving underground economy within the prison. Basic standards of administrative control and accountability appear to have broken down. Provisions purchased with public money for the prison mess are being diverted to sustain a private trade where a bunch of coriander costs Rs 500, a plate of fried rice Rs 1,000, while a tandoori meal fetches as much as Rs 7,000.
That’s not all. The fruit supplies meant for prisoners have been diverted for brewing illicit liquor inside the canteen, which has now turned into a conduit for alcohol, drugs and tobacco. Furthermore, there is another layer to this. Inmates are reportedly made to pay for goods through external digital transfers, including GPay and UPI transactions to accounts linked to convicts or their associates, while the official MRP is simultaneously deducted from their Prison Personal Cash accounts.
The argument that such breaches are simply the work of resourceful inmates no longer stands up to scrutiny. A prison does not accumulate numerous mobile phones, power banks, televisions and commercial quantities of narcotics merely because someone found a crack in the wall. Between 2017 and mid-2025, more than 161 mobile phones were officially seized from the premises. In a single operation in early 2026, another 48 phones were recovered. At the same time, prison personnel, including IRB staff and police constables, have been caught attempting to smuggle substantial quantities of ganja, charas and synthetic drugs into the facility.
When those responsible for guarding the prison become part of the supply chain, it results in a systemic collapse. The recent revelation that a convicted narcotics offender operated an international drug network extending from Colvale to Delhi, using WhatsApp and UPI transactions, illustrates the potentially devastating consequences. Surprisingly, the response of authorities is baffling. There have been arrests, departmental action and routine reshuffles, but over years, such action has not changed anything. The High Court of Bombay at Goa captured this concern sharply when it described the prison administration's compliance affidavits as an "eyewash". The Court's observation that Goa may have built a modern prison without developing a correspondingly modern and accountable institutional mindset goes to the heart of the crisis. If the State government and the Department of Prisons hope to restore public confidence, they must confront the deeper failures exposed at the Colvale jail. Freeze all accounts, UPI handles and third-party phone numbers involved in financial transactions. Undertake an audit of CCTV footage from barracks, canteen and other sensitive areas. Identify blind spots and suspicious patterns. Shift those operating networks and crack down with NDPS laws.
Colvale jail has repeatedly generated headlines for being a functional hub for major drug kingpins, and joins the likes of Tihar Prisons in New Delhi, Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai, and Kapurthala Central Jail in Punjab. A mere cosmetic clean-up will not help. It needs an independent and comprehensive overhaul. Now that the DIG has been entrusted with the probe into the latest expose, we hope better sense will prevail.
