Give your TVs for our inmates: Tihar to OC

The jail authorities have sent a letter to the OC Chief Executive Officer,requesting that “500 TV sets may be given to Delhi Prisons to be used by our inmates on transfer basis at no cost to us”.

Ironically,Tihar Jail,which houses “approximately 12,500 inmates”,is also the present address of sacked Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi and other senior Organising Committee officials,jailed on charges of corruption in Games management.

In the letter to the CEO,dated August 8 (Newsline has a copy),Deputy Inspector General (Prisons) R N Sharma writes that the move will “further improve the recreational facilities for the prisoners lodged in Delhi Prisons and would be a step further in the field of correctional administration”.

The OC has already sent over 350 LCD TVs to the Defence ministry,as part of an inter-ministerial arrangement.

When contacted,Organising Committee CEO Jarnail Singh confirmed having received a letter from the jail authorities. “Tihar Jail would want TVs for its officials and other purposes; I don’t think they would want them for the inmates,” Singh told Newsline.

He said the Organising Committee is only left with 50 TVs,which it is ready to send to Tihar after a go-ahead is received from the Sports ministry. “We will send 50 TV sets to Tihar once an approval is received from the Sports ministry.”

The letter from DIG (Prisons) mentions that “a number of TV sets are spare with the OC and it is proposed to hand them over to some government organisation on transfer basis”.