Taking into account the unprecedented surge in COVID-19 cases in the country, the Supreme Court has passed directions for decongestion of prisons and ordered release of all those inmates who were granted bail or parole last year in view of the pandemic. While prisons are already under the process of decongesting their space, inmates, who are lodged in the jails of Haryana, are able to cope with the depressing situation with the help of the jail radio. While 3 jail radios are already functioning successfully, 4 other jails are in the process of introducing new formats for radio programming.
It is to be noted that Panipat jail was the first to launch its jail radio on January 16 this year. It was inaugurated by the Jail Minister Shri Ranjit Singh. Following this, jails of Faridabad and Ambala also started their Jail Radio. With this, 12 out of 19 jails are already covered.
With the completion of the first phase of prison radio in Haryana, Shri Rajiv Arora, IAS, ACS (Home) and Shri K. Selvaraj, IPS, DG Prisons (Retd) inaugurated other set of Prison Radio which included District Jail Karnal, Gurgaon, Rohtak and Central Jail (I) Hisar.
Third phase will include 5 jails namely District Jails Jhajjar, Jind, Sonipat, Yamunanagar and Sirsa. These prison radios have now become a lifeline for inmates. They are demanding an increase in the timing. Currently, these jails run the radio for an hour daily with Panipat extending it to another hour.
These prison radios are the brainchild of prison reformer Vartika Nanda. She is the founder of Tinka Tinka Foundation. She has selected and trained the inmates and helped in the making of programs. She heads the Department of Journalism in ady Shri Ram College, Delhi University.
Tinka Prison Research Cell will soon be releasing the impact of these jail radios on inmates. This is a unique cell started with the objective to promote prison related research.
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