Prison dept eyes Deonar telecom factory land for third city jail

Maharashtra seeks to reserve BSNL's Deonar land for a new jail, citing insufficient space at Mandale due to marshland and CRZ issues.

MUMBAI: The state home department, still looking for suitable land for its third jail in the city, has asked the urban development department to reserve the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL)’s Deonar telecom factory land for a prison.

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A few years ago, the revenue department had sanctioned 2.05 hectares of land at Mandale village in Turbhe, where a vertical jail is due to come up. The prisons department wanted a five-hectare plot, but a huge chunk of this was taken by MMRDA for a metro car shed. The jails department feels that what is left of the land is insufficient and is hence demanding the land where the Deonar telecom factory, which once manufactured telephones, cables and other equipment, stood.

Speaking to Hindustan Times, Radhika Rastogi, principal secretary, home, in charge of jails said, “We asked the urban development department to change the reservation of the Deonar telecom factory land to ‘jail’. We have been given land at Mandale, but it is marshland and has CRZ issues. It is difficult to construct a jail there. We need a larger jail, and hence we want the Deonar land.”

The home department is also taking up the matter with senior officials so that the union government grants it the 1,84,059 square-metre plot belonging to BSNL.

HT attempted to call Harshavardhan Singh, the chief general manager of MTNL, but his phone was switched off. A senior urban development department (UDD) officer said that the reservation matter was yet to be placed before the additional chief secretary of UDD.

At present, Arthur Road Jail is Mumbai’s central prison and has a capacity of 804 inmates. Often, however, there are more than 2,500 inmates here. Due to the acute paucity of space, prisoners are also sent to Taloja Jail and Thane Jail. Mumbai also has a district prison at Byculla, where women are housed as well as men involved in minor crimes. The jails department is also repairing barracks in Thane Central Jail and constructing additional cells.

For the western suburbs of Mumbai, the state had offered a plot of land at Manori to the jails department. “Our officers visited the plot and found that it is in a highly inconvenient location, as one has to take a ferry to access it,” said an official. “In Mumbai, we have undertrials in our jails and it is not possible to transport them by ferry to the courts. Hence, we have dropped the idea of having a jail in Manori.” Officials added that the jails department was scouting for another plot in Pahadi in Goregaon.