Syangja, December 16

The inmates in Syangja District Prison have been complaining of a number of problems they have been facing since long, one among them being lack of drinking water, sanitation facilities as well as adequate space for sleeping.

Chief Jailor Chudamani Bhandari said the jail has been accommodating more inmates than its actual capacity, consequently leading to poor sanitation, hygiene and lack of drinking water facility. The jail has capacity to house 50 inmates while a total of 157 inmates are currently serving their time in the prison. Of them 11 are women, according to the prison administration.

Inmate Durga Prasad Chapagain bemoaned, “Since our jail is overcrowded, we have to wait for nearly one hour for our turn to use the toilet during peak hours.”

Another jailbird Dinesh Gurung lamented that lack of adequate space inside the jail had forced them to take turns even to sleep.

Chief Jailor Bhandari said due to narrow structure of the prison building accommodating disproportionate number of jailbirds, the prison faces issues time to time. The administration here has been bringing this dire situation to the knowledge of the authority concerned and the higher-ups but to no avail, said Bhandari.

Furthermore, he added that the jail has not been able to provide timely medical services to inmates when they are taken ill. The inmates here are reportedly taken ill mostly from the use of contaminated water and poor sanitation facility.