KARACHI, Dec 1: Sindh Governor Mohammedmian Soomro granted on Saturday one- year remission to all prisoners in the province on the occasion of Ramazan.

The governor, who inaugurated the Barkati Correctional Ward on the premises of Karachi Central Prison, also announced a grant of Rs2.5 million for the century-old jail.

He also announced one-month basic salary for the staff of the Central Prison as a one-time ex-gratia honorarium.

The project of the correctional ward, comprising three barracks for about 600 prisoners, was fully financed by the Barkati Foundation Trust, a welfare organization, with an estimated cost of over Rs4.5m.

The governor praised the efforts of the Trust and appealed to philanthropists to come forward and play their due role in improving conditions in prisons.

He observed that he found substance in the grievances of the inmates of Sindh prisons, which included the system of remissions.

He also assured removal of anomalies and granting of all the remissions to the convicted prisoners permissible under the rules, as pointed out by one of the convicts while offering vote of thanks to the governor on behalf of the jail inmates.

The governor also announced enhancement of two-day remission for good conduct to five days.

He said he would look into the matter regarding the issue of remissions granted by him on the occasion of 12th Rabi-ul-Awwal and 14th August.

He agreed that the Central Prison hospital needed to be upgraded as medical care of the inmates was being neglected due to overcrowding in the jail.

He also praised the formation of an advisory committee comprising jail inmates for overhauling the primitive procedures in Sindh’s prisons and described it as a novel idea. He also praised the computerization of entire record of prisoners in Sindh’s jails.

Earlier, the Inspector-General Prisons, Brig Nisar Ahmed, in his welcome address said this was the firstever visit of a governor to the Central Prison since its establishment in 1899.

He said as of today almost 5,000 prisoners were housed in 25 barracks and 191 cells of the prison, which had been built more than 100 year back with initial capacity of only 991 prisoners. “Due to excessive overcrowding hardened criminals cannot be segregated from casual or white-collared inmates as required under the prison rules,” he said.

Giving details of the Barkati Correctional Ward, he said the construction of this complex would provide reasonable and comparatively more hygienic living space to about 600 prisoners.”A number of other welfare projects are in the offing, for which the help and support of the people of Karachi and its business community are praiseworthy.”

He said due to excessive and overcrowding, medical care of the prisoners was a most neglected aspect of the prison. “Besides psychiatric problems, tuberculosis and skin diseases are rampant and need to be tackled on a priority basis.”

Brig Mehar said he had constituted an “advisory committee” comprising experienced inmates in the prison to help the jail administration in streamlining and upgrading the more that 100-year-old and outdated Prison Rules, office procedures and the redundant working norms prevalent in the prisons.

The advisory committee comprises convicts Mohammed Usman Farooqui, former chairman of the Pakistan Steel Mills, Rauf B. Qadri, former chief of the Bankers’ Equity Limited, Khan Mohammed Mehar, a former bureaucrat, Abdus Sattar Dero, former chief of the Port Qasim Authority, and Ramesh M. Udeshi, former secretary of the land utilization department.

Brig Mehar said the advisory committee had already undertaken a number of organization and management studies. “One of the important studies conducted by the committee was the streamlining and computerization of the court production procedure with the objective to ultimately achieve cent per cent production of the undertrial prisoners in courts,” he said.

He also informed the governor that the entire record of prisoners in the jails of Karachi, Dadu, Nawabshah and Larkana had been computerized. “The data includes fingerprints and photographs of all prisoners,” he said.

He said the liberal grant of parole to inmates was one of the best methods adopted all over the world to overcome the menace of overcrowding in prisons. “Even in other provinces of Pakistan parole is being liberally granted,” he said.

Brig Mehar said the low parole figure was due to complicated and cumbersome procedures and stricter rules for granting parole in Sindh as compared with other provinces.

The inauguration ceremony, followed by Iftar, was also attended by Sindh home secretary Brig Mukhtar Ahmed (retd).