By Our Reporter
Shillong: The prisons department is yet to open bank accounts for prisoners who are working as daily labourers in the district jails.
According to CAG report 2018, scrutiny of records revealed that the prisons department regularly revises the rates at which wages are to be paid to prisoners on the basis of minimum wages approved by Labour Department, Government of Meghalaya. From December 2017 onwards, the amount to be paid to prisoners ranged between Rs 132.30 per day for unskilled labour to Rs 164.50 per day for highly skilled labour.
During 2013-18, in the three selected district jails, an amount of Rs 23.58 lakh was sanctioned, of which, an amount of Rs 11.42 lakh was disbursed. The remaining amount pertained to those prisoners who had not been released from jail.
During November 2017, the DGP instructed all the five district jails to open bank accounts for all the prisoners to enable transfer of wages earned by them. However, they have not been opened. The jail authorities stated that the reason for delay was lack of documents and that record of prisoners’ wages were being maintained in a wage payment register.
The Department stated that district jails of Jowai and Tura have since opened accounts for convicted prisoners and that the process was on in the other districts.
