Paucity of land in Mumbai holds up construction of new prison

The new prison is being built to reduce the burden on Arthur Road jail, which houses three times the inmates it can hold.

Mumbai: Getting 10 acres of land to build a new prison in Mumbai is turning out to be something of a challenge for the state home department.

The Arthur Road Jail occupies 2 acres of land. (Vijayanand Gupta/HT Photo)

After deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis asked the administration to find a parcel of land of at least that size in the Mumbai suburbs, two were identified in Mankhurd and Mandala. However, given the technical problems with both, the search is continuing, with home department officials even considering the option of a multi-storey prison if they do not get a larger plot.

The new prison is being built to reduce the burden on Arthur Road jail, which houses three times the inmates it can hold. A previous plan to construct a new jail was put on the backburner a few years ago because the plot allotted by the revenue department at Mandala in the eastern suburbs was too small. The home department had asked for 12 acres but the Mandala plot, next to the metro car depot, was only five acres. The home department has now requested an additional seven acres adjacent to the existing parcel of land.

Apart from the Mandala plot, the home department has identified another land parcel of over 50 acres currently occupied by the Children’s Aid Society in Mankhurd. “After Fadnavis directed the administration to speed up the search for a suitable plot, we swung into action,” said a revenue department official. “Chief secretary Manu Kumar Srivastava has been personally monitoring the search, and we zeroed in on this piece of land. However, the Children’s Aid Society illegally sub-leased parts of it to three to four parties for farming, and they have now moved court.”

Another official from the home department said that since the litigation was unlikely to end anytime soon, the second option has more or less been struck down by the department. “Although the Mumbai suburban collector has ordered the encroachments to be removed, the parties whose rights have been vested in the land for years have approached the judiciary. They have also asked the government to regularise the encroachment by charging an appropriate amount of money. Since this is likely to go on for years and no other plots seem to be in sight, we have requested the revenue department for an additional seven acres in Mandala,” he added.

In October 2018, the revenue department had transferred the five-acre land at Mandala to the home department for the prison. The department, however, did not start construction, as it needed space for a prison large enough to house 2,500 inmates. The home department then tapped the possibility of a multi-storey jail, for which a team of officers visited Israel to study prototypes there.

With getting a 10-acre plot in Mumbai turning out to be a difficult task, home department officials are now considering settling for whatever is available. “We may now go for the Mandala plot even if we do not get more land adjoining it. Since there are no multi-storey buildings around the plot, the idea of a multi-storey jail, which Fadnavis mooted, should not have any security issues,” the home department officer said. He added that the search could go on for longer if the Mandala plot too was rejected by the government.

A new jail in the Mumbai suburbs will help reduce the pressure on Arthur Road Jail, which houses 3,592 inmates against its holding capacity of 804. Sixty jails across the state house 42,859 inmates against their housing capacity of 24,722 prisoners, according to official figures in July 2022.