The Home Department has written to Goa Police for its comments to a proposal by the Prisons Department that seeks deploying the law and enforcement force to assist the jail guards manning the prison cells housing close to 700 inmates.
Sources said that Inspector General of Prisons Bosco George (IPS) had recently submitted a proposal to the State government to allot one platoon of the Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) to tide over the shortage of jail staff. “The Home Department has forwarded the file to Goa Police for its comments on the proposal. An appropriate decision will be taken thereafter,” a senior officer told The Goan.
The state-of-art jail houses around 694 convicts and undertrials while the staff crunch has added to the workload of the existing strength.
“There’s a shortage of around 40 staff. The process for filling in the vacancies is underway, but until then, we can use the service of the IRB personnel. I have therefore decided to submit a proposal to the Director General of Police (Jaspal Singh) to allow deployment of one platoon of the IRB in the Central Jail,” George had told The Goan in his first interaction on taking over the posting, last month.
The platoon will consist of 25-odd personnel. The IRB personnel, at present, are posted in the outer ring of the jail and tasked with frisking the staff, inmates, and visitors before they enter the premises. George, also the IRB Commandant, emphasized that the temporary deployment of the IRB staff inside the jail will help share the workload.
A scuffle that broke out between two rival groups of undertrials in the jail, in September, was due to a lack of staff manning the blocks.
Unhappy over the Colvale Jail’s overall functioning and lack of facilities during a surprise inspection in September, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant announced a major overhaul by including Goa Police to handle its security apparatus.
