Chandigarh, Nov 9 (PTI) Punjab Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh on Thursday launched a mental health intervention programme for inmates in the state jails.
While launching the programme during a state-level function held here, Singh said this initiative will provide screening, counselling and referral services to prisoners in four jails of Ludhiana, Gurdaspur, Patiala and Amritsar.
The minister informed that this project will soon be implemented across all the jails in Punjab.
Counsellors have been recruited in these centres with the support of the World Health Partners, who will conduct counselling with the aim of improving the mental health of detainees and prisoners, the minister said in an official release.
Underlining the mental health issues faced by prisoners, Singh said suicide is a major consequence of mental illness among inmates.
A Supreme Court-appointed committee in its latest report has stated that suicide is a major cause of unnatural deaths among prisoners in India.
The committee said out of 817 unnatural deaths in prisons, 660 were suicides, which is “quite alarming”.
The minister said out of 25,000 prisoners in jails, 14,000 prisoners are lodged there under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.
“All of such prisoners are not smugglers, but they are in jails due to drug addiction. Instead of sending these drug addicts to prisons, if they are sent to de-addiction centres by improving their mental health, the prison load can be reduced considerably,” he said. PTI CHS NB NB
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