CCTV cameras to keep a close watch on prisoners in UP jails

Lucknow: The installation of CCTV cameras and upgrading them in 30 jails of Uttar Pradesh, being carried out under the instruction of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to monitor activities of notorious criminals and mafia in jails, is in the final stages now. DG (Jail) Anand Kumar said that the exercise would be completed by February. It is noteworthy that the Jail department had sent a proposal to the government last year to release a budget of Rs 976 lakh for the same.

The DG (Jail) informed that 933 CCTVs are being installed in 30 jails, out of which 670 new CCTVs have been installed while the rest of the defective cameras are being replaced. The number of CCTV cameras in these jails has increased from 50 to 60 with the installation of 34 CCTV cameras. The highest number of 46 cameras have been installed in Agra District Jail. All these cameras are directly connected to the prison headquarters so that the prisons can be monitored 24 hours a day through a video wall in the command center operating in the prison headquarters. Among the jails in the state where cameras are being replaced is the sensitive Banda Jail, where mafia don Mukhtar Ansari is imprisoned.

CCTV cameras have been installed in central prisons in Agra, Bareilly, Fatehgarh, Naini, and Varanasi. There are also district prisons in Agra, Firozabad, Aligarh, Sultanpur, Kanpur, Kanpur Dehat, Bulandshahr, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Muzaffarnagar, Varanasi, Etawah, Ghazipur, Mirzapur, Faizabad, Barabanki, Kannauj, Azamg arh, Sitapur, Chitrakoot, Gorakhpur, and Moradabad. New CCTVs have been installed in Unnao, Banda, and Pratapgarh while defective CCTVs are being replaced.