Punjab government runs out of funds to run prisons

The precarious financial situation in Punjab is manifesting in different ways, weather it was delay in giving salaries and pensions to employees, or panic at the time of crop procurement payment.

The latest addition in the list are prisons in the state, which are feeling the heat due to lack of funds. The overall financial situation of the state is precarious as chief minister Amarinder Singh recently told the government think tank Niti Aayog that the state is under debt of Rs 1.82 trillion (Rs 1.82 lakh crore).

The bad financial health of jails could be gauged from the fact that a majority of the prisons are finding it hard to buy necessities such as ration and pay power bills.

The situation is deteriorated particularly after the Reserve Bank of India stopped paying the state after it defaulted on overdraft.

With no budgetary provision for jails, the prisons department is managing its affairs by raising debt and buying items on credit.

Sources in the state prisons department say that providing meals to inmates is turning out to be a tough task for officials, who are forced to buy items from the market on credit. Some jails are feeding prisoners with vegetables grown on their premises.

Sources said the department has run out of vegetables, cooking oil, sugar, milk powder, lentils, salt and cooking gas. Some of the suppliers who provide food to the jails have not been paid for the last six months and are now refusing to supply anymore.

The jail authorities have come up with innovative ideas to deal with the situation as the prisons are procuring many items from government-run undertakings so that they don’t have to pay. They are taking milk from Verka, ghee from Markfed and sugar from government-run mills.

According to some estimates the expenditure of each jail is Rs 40 lakh to Rs 80 lakh per month.

Apart from food items, many district jails have run out of medicines too. Jail hospitals are either not giving medicines or asking inmates to arrange medicines from their relatives.

Sources said that doctors are finding it hard to manage from the available resources. In some jails, the authorities have arranged for essential medicines on their own.

Apart from medicines, jail officials confirmed that contractors had not been paid for vehicles outsourced to the department to be used by senior officials. The bills are pending for more than two months.

However, additional DGP (prisons) Gaurav Yadav said the government had assured to solve the matter. “The department has written to the government for necessary sanctions,” he said, adding there were some technical issues and nothing much should be read into it.