Revenue land on Ghatkopar-Mankhurd Link Road given for jail

Mumbai: Eleven acres of revenue land along the Ghatkopar-Mankhurd Link were handed over to the Central Jail Authority on Friday. The handover was done in the presence of state revenue minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule and Mumbai suburban guardian minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha.

“The construction of a new jail complex will ease pressure on existing prisons. Mumbai’s security and administrative management will benefit significantly from this move,” Bawankule said.

The land which was overrun with slums was cleared in one day of hutments in April last month. Nearly 1,200 huts were demolished after the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) used satellites to map the slums in the area from 2000. Mumbai Suburban Collector S Katiyar said slums that had come up post 2011 on the site were removed.

CM Devendra Fadnavis, who also holds the Home portfolio, had directed that the 11 acres be made available for the construction of a jail. The ACS (Appeals & Security) Home Department had accordingly written to the Mumbai suburban collector’s office asking for the land. SRA was then asked to identify the post-2011 slums, which it did using the Network for Encroachment Tracking and Reporting for Mumbai (NETRAM). It is the first plot to be cleared using this technology.

In 2017, the state govt had informed Bombay High Court that the state govt has earmarked 16 hectares in Mandale, Mankhurd, for a proposed jail to ease overcrowding in Arthur Road and Turbhe jails. The Arthur road jail, with a capacity for 804 prisoners, now houses around 1,814 inmates. Of 60 prisons in Maharashtra, the government has constructed six new jails at Taloja, Sindhudurg, Jalna, Nandurbar, Washim and Gadchiroli since 2015.

In 2020, the department of prisons had directed the public works department to prepare a plan for a 25-storey prison with a capacity to accommodate 10,000 prisoners on a 5-acre plot in Mankhurd.