Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Friday announced a slew of measures for the welfare jail inmates, who will be freed from prison during a meeting of the State Sentence Review Board (SRB). “The proposal to free a 75-year-old woman guilty of killing her husband is fine, but has it been ensured that how the old woman will live? Does she have a ration card, what will she do after getting free? Has it been planned or not? If not, find out the woman’s family, her financial status as soon as possible. Ensure that the elderly people who are being freed do not face any kind of trouble. Give benefits of pension, ration card, housing scheme to them,” said the CM.
The CM said that a policy should be chalked out to cover the old prisoners in various prisons of the State under the pension scheme so that they or their dependents can get financial help. The government plans to give pension in addition to the benefits received by the prison administration for work. The CM said that a list of the nature of crime of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe prisoners in various jails of the State should be prepared so that the State government can do something for them.
The CM said that before freeing the prisoners, they should be counseled. So that after release, they do not get involved in any kind of criminal activity. “Also, appoint psychiatrists, so that the psychiatrists could counsell the prisoners in the prisons of the State. This is necessary for a State like Jharkhand. In the absence of knowledge, captives are unable to fight a legal battle,” he said.
To release the detainees, the nature of the detainees’ crime, conduct, age, years spent in prison, their criminal mentality (so that they do not go out and commit crime again), the socio-economic status of the detainee’s family is being monitored. There is no consideration on detainees falling under the category of heinous crime. Cases of prisoners convicted of committing petty crimes and culpable homicide also came up in the meeting.
The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Sukhdev Singh, Additional Chief Secretary Home, Prisons and Disaster Management Department L. Kiangte, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Rajiv Arun Ekka, Director General of Police MV Rao, Principal Secretary and Law Advisor to Law Department Pradeep Kumar Srivastava, Chairman Commercial Tax Tribunal Sanjay Prasad, Assistant Inspector General of Prisons Deepak Vidyarthi and others.
Meanwhile, reviewing the Sports Policy 2020 of the State the CM asked officials to give priority to the games and players in the State, so that talent can be identified. “These talents can be better trained and prepared to participate in national and international level. Include these points in the sports policy. Build the playground at block level also. The result of the sports policy will come out after five years. Start a portal where players of the State can record their details. Create a database of players. This will be helpful in making sports policy more effective,” he said.
In another meeting on Friday the CM said that till next order, new scheme should not be started under District Mineral Funds. “Plans from the past will continue to work. The highest expenditure has been incurred in providing pure drinking water to the people. During the corona infection period, 30 per cent of the funds have been spent in providing relief to the people. Review the ongoing schemes and proposed schemes in different districts and give full report, so that maximum number of people can be benefited by using the fund properly,” he said directing the officers in order to review the physical / achievement of the District Mineral Fund and the proposal submitted by the Department of Mines and Geology on the proposal of on-time reallocation of DMFT amount for PM Garib Kalyan Yojana.
