While the prison population had increased in the last 10 years from 1997, it fell from 13,436 in 2006 to 11,605 last year. The jail authorities have taken a sigh of relief as the jails are a little decongested now. In the last 50 years, Tihar Jail, always saw an upward trend, but for the first time in history, the population has declined, jail officials said.

“Plea bargaining, introduced in July last year, resulted in freeing of about 650 prisoners. Eighty-five court sessions were held at the jail premises which settled 4,216 cases last year,” Gupta said.

Talking about development programmes in jail, Gupta said the long-time awaited project of installing 258 CCTV cameras in all the jails would be completed by February 15 this year. “We will be able to keep a tab on all the movements of prisoners and jail staff so that anything untoward can be noticed,” he said. The jail is also improving the gas supply system by laying natural gas pipeline with the help of Indraprastha Gas Limited. “At present, LPG cylinders are used in jail. And whenever there are riots in any jail, it has been seen that prisoners use LPG cylinders to create mayhem,” he said. Subsequently, the jail authorities are also installing a cellphone jammer on trial basis so that complaints of bringing mobile inside jail can be checked.