Report by Michael Rodrigues
Team Mangalorean Udupi

Udupi: District Jail built 15 kms away from Udupi, earlier had come under dispute over security reasons.  Now the same jail has landed in another dispute which is about proper provision of minimum requirement of water for the prisoners.

If there were to be dearth of water in the prison that would have been alright.  But  for the past two days some private parties have been supplying water to the prisoners in the jail, but this is dangerous in the interest of the security of the inmates. And this has also led to some controversies too.

"There is one bore- well inside the jail, including one electric motor to run it.  But on Tuesday & Wednesday since there was no power supply in the prison, the pump didn't function, which led to inconvenience of water supply to the inmates ", said Srikumar, the Jail Superintendent to Mangalorean.com.

Two years ago an electric generator worth lac had been brought and stored inside the compound for the public, but no power was connected to it. And since that generator was not in service for nearly two years,  now it is in a non-usable condition.

There was a Legal  awareness programme for the inmates of the jail  on Wednesday held by District Legal Services during which District Judge, District additional DC and such authorities had visited the prison.   It' is during that time when the jail staff told the media persons of the problems inside the jail.

It was also found that the urinals were stinking without no running water for long.  The inmates have no proper water to drink, even they can't take a decent bath! Angered at this water scarcity the jail inmates have destroyed the water supply system beyond repair conditions.

Hearing all about this water situation in the media, entrepreneur Pramod Madhwaraj had arranged the supply about 10,000 litres of water for the use of jail inmates.  The authorities of the jail have accepted his offer,  having no other source of getting water.

But the question raised here is, how safe is supplying water, food from outside sources to the inmates.   How safe is providing any food, water to the inmates without suitable testing? Seems like another controversy is raging now due to this water supply arrangement?  Intentionally or otherwise what if someone tries to poison or try to harm the life of the inmates through other  means ,with this kind of water/food arrangement, what will be the consequences? Who will be responsible to answer this question?