ISLAMABAD: The work on the modern prison in Sector H-16 Islamabad is underway and it would be completed soon, resolving the problem of district administration and Capital police.
The project Construction of Model Prison at H-16 Islamabad was approved by ECNEC on July 20, at a cost of Rs.3.9 billion.
More than Rs. 2 billion has been spent so far on the project while an amount of Rs. 350 million has been allocated in Public Sector Development Program this year (PSDP 2022-23), an official source told stated on Sunday.
He said that the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has formed a six-member committee headed by Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah to review the prison project and ensure its completion at earliest. Currently, Adiala Jail is housing Islamabad’s share of prisoners as the capital has no jail.
The ICT administration also wants its own jail as it is becoming increasingly problematic for the police to transport prisoners to and from Rawalpindi after court hearings.
The Islamabad jail complex is being constructed on 90-acre in Sector H-16 near the motorway.
The under-construction jail will house 2,000 prisoners and will be equipped with a 22-bed hospital, a school for the children of the jail staff, a mosque, a library, an auditorium, segregated cells and separate barracks for women and juvenile prisoners.
The complex will also have a training facility for prison officials.
In 2018, the then Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal inaugurated work on the long-awaited prison in the capital during the tenure of the PML-N.
However, the work has consistently faced delay since then and the cost of this project is now expected to escalate by millions of rupees due to the negligence of related authorities in tenure PTI led government.
Though, the government has allocated funds for the project in successive annual budgets over the past few years but had been unable to start work on it in earnest.
The Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has now directed the authorities concerned to complete the project in the next fiscal year. The source said that project would be completed as per directions of prime minister and it might be operational in the end of 2023. –Agencies
