Jail, court video-link to be revived soon

PUNE: The large number of undertrials languishing in Maharashtra’s jails can now hope for speedy court proceedings with the prisons department deciding to revive and expand the defunct video conferencing (VC) facility between prisons and courts in the state. Several prisons had stopped the practice because of the high rates charged by the public sector service providers.

Inspector general of police (prisons) Uddhav Kamble told DNA that the state prison department would float tenders to invite competitive bids from various service providers. He said the system went defunct in many jails as the charges levied by the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited were found exorbitant.

In Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai, the service provided by the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) was running satisfactorily, Kamble said. BSNL and MTNL charge Rs45,000 for installation of a site for videoconferencing. However, BSNL charged heavily on a per-hour basis, which was found unaffordable by the prisons department, he said.

This facility is vital for speeding up trials as there is no loss of time in transporting accused from jails to courts.

As of March 31, there were 15,822 men and 751 women undertrials in the state jails. Most of them -- including Abdul Karim Telgi, the kingpin of the fake stamp scam -- are produced in court via video conferencing system.

The central prisons in Yerawada, Nagpur and Amravati stopped using the video conferencing system two months ago.