Kolkata:
In a bid to give jail inmates some amount of freedom, West Bengal government has decided to set up an "Open Correctional Home" at Durgapur in Burdwan district, the second such home in the state for convicts.
"Only prisoners in their fag end of serving jail terms would be lodged in this home and they will be free to come and go outside, mix with their families and earn livelihood on their own," state minister for Correctional Administration Department Haider Aziz Safwi said.
He said while the first open correctional home at Lalbag in Murshidabad district has a capacity to lodge 80 inmates, 30 such prisoners would be kept at the Durgapur facility.
Asked whether there was chance of prisoners fleeing while remaining outside the correctional home, he said there was only one example where an inmate who was suffering from cancer fled, but was later apprehended.
Sometime later the prisoner had committed suicide in jail, the minister added.
As jails in different districts were overcrowded, there was a plan to set up a district jail at Tamluk in East Midnapore district and another at Barasat in North 24 Parganas district.