Delhi: DDA hands over land to Prison Department for new district jail in Narela

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) handed over a piece of land measuring 1.6 lakh square metre to the Prison Department for the construction of a new district jail in Narela, sources said on Monday.

They said the move came after Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena had directed the land owning agency earlier this month to hand over the land allotted for a new jail in Narela to the Prison Department.

He had also sought a compliance report by June 15.

Sources said that the establishment of a new jail will ease the situation in existing ones where the number of inmates are double their capacity.

Sources said that the matter of transfer of land had been pending since 2018. The land transfer was held up because of unsettled payment issues between the two departments concerned.

They said that an amount of Rs 7.79 crore was released to DDA as an advance by the Prison Department way back in 2003 with a request for allotment of land. Later the DDA raised a revised demand for around Rs 28 crore in 2018 for the identified land of 1.6 lakh square metre in Narela, payment for which was made by the department in 2020.

Subsequently, the DDA raised the demand for Rs 29.88 crore including interest for delayed payment from July 29, 2018 to March 28, 2020. The issue of interest payment was not settled.

Meanwhile, the DDA moved a proposal for relocation of already allotted land in Narela for District Jail, Police Lines, Police Training Institute, etc. ''LG Vinai Kumar Saxena overruled this proposal and ordered handing over of the land to the Prison Department pending the settlement of payment issues.

''LG also asked for a compliance report regarding handing over of the land by DDA to the Prison Department by June 15 which has been complied with as DDA handed over the land for jail construction,” a source said.

The setting up of this new central jail will help ease the burden on existing prisons at Tihar, Mandoli and Rohini which are housing 19,669 inmates against their capacity of 10,026.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)