GUWAHATI, Nov 14 - The problem of overcrowding in jails located within the State seems to have gone from bad to worse in recent times.
As per the �Prison Statistics India 2015� report released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the occupancy rate in jails located in Assam in 2015 was 109.7 per cent as compared to 101.9 per cent in 2014.
As against an available capacity of 8,292 in the 31 jails of Assam, the inmate population at the end of 2015 stood at 9,097.
There are 31 prisons in Assam which include six Central jails and 22 district jails. There are also one sub-jail, open jail and special jail each.
The overall available capacity for males in all the jails combined was 7,706, while the inmate population stood at 8,780 at the end of 2015. This translates to an occupancy rate of 113.9 per cent.
The available capacity for female inmates was 586, while the inmate population at the end of 2015 stood at 317, resulting in an occupancy rate of 54.1 per cent.
In the six Central jails of Assam, the inmate population in 2015 was 3,529 compared to a total capacity of 3,956.
In the 22 district jails, however, the overcrowding problem was much more serious. Such prisons in Assam had an inmate population of 5,263 as against a total capacity of 3,832.
The inmate population of the solitary sub-jail in Assam was 56 at the end of 2015, while its total capacity was only 32.
The open jail had an inmate population of 26 as against a capacity of 100, while there were 223 inmates in the only special jail of Assam last year as against a total capacity of 372.
Across the country, the occupancy rate of prisons at the end of 2015 was 114.4 per cent, which was a slight improvement from the figure of 117.4 per cent at the end of 2014.
Meanwhile, most of the other North Eastern States had a much better occupancy rate as compared with Assam.
As per the data, the occupancy rate in the jails of Nagaland was 33.8 per cent in 2015, while in Tripura it was 47.8 per cent. It was 67.1 per cent in Manipur, 86.8 per cent in Arunachal Pradesh, 94.9 per cent in Mizoram and 177.9 per cent in Meghalaya.
