Jails have a better menu than GMC for inmates

Jails have a better menu than GMC for inmates

Byline: Preetu Nair,16 September 2009,The Times of India, Goa edition

PANAJI: The government has decided to increase the money spent on prisoners’ diet from Rs 35 to Rs 40 per person per day from October 1. The
amount is almost double the Rs 22 allotted per person per day for in-patients at the Goa Medical College and Hospital, Bambolim, for the last three years.

At present, there are 146 prisoners in Aguada central jail and 123 at Sada sub-jail. They are fed tea (without milk) with bread or poi for breakfast, a vegetarian or non-vegetarian lunch with fish curry or egg, evening black tea with biscuits and vegetarian dinner with chapatis. Every fortnight, they get chicken curry for lunch.

Accused held in police custody, too, have better provisions for meals. Panaji lock-up has provisions to feed each accused with lunch and dinner worth Rs 26 and breakfast worth Rs 12. At the Bicholim lockup, a prisoner can avail food worth Rs 30.

“All prisoners are given food as prescribed by the jail manual, which includes a proper diet of protein, fats, carbohydrates, calcium, iron and vitamins. Also, for sick prisoners who are not admitted to hospital, we have a facility for a special diet, which is in lieu of the regular diet to which the prisoner is otherwise eligible and which has to be recommended by a medical officer,” said ajail officer.

Said John Abreu Lobo, amicus curiae in a public interest litigation for better facilities in the state’s prisons, “To ensure that the quality of food served to prisoners is not affected, the amount allotted for prisoners’ food needs to be hiked, taking into account the high rate of inflation and rise in prices of food items.”