Lucknow, March 20 : The Uttar Pradesh government has decided to construct 20 new high-tech jails in the next five years. Eleven of these will come up in districts that do not have a jail at present. Besides, the construction of one central jail and other jails in nine districts has already started while the number of barracks is being increased in some of the jails to increase their prisoner capacity and prevent overcrowding. The state government's move to strengthen prison facilities in UP comes in the wake of the recent case of MLA Abbas Ansari, who was illegally allowed to have secret meetings with his wife Nikhat Bano and operate his business inside the Chitrakoot jail. In another such case, it was found out that mafia Atiq Ahmad's brother Ashraf received special facilities to meet his aides. The meetings were not even logged into the register of Bareilly jail. Taking serious note of these incidents, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has given a green signal to the prison department to go ahead with the construction of new jails and upgrade of existing ones, a state government spokesperson said. He further stated that these jails will be hi-tech. The process of increasing the barracks at different jails is also ongoing to reduce overcrowding of prisoners. The need for building new jails in view the facilities provided by the jail manual and protection of the human rights of the prisoners was stressed at a meeting between prison officials and the chief minister. The senior officials of the prison administration and reform services said that seven central jails of the state have 15,201 inmates lodged in them against their cumulative capacity to accommodate 13,669 prisoners. Similarly, 62 district jails with a capacity of 49,107 prisoners have 95,597 prisoners lodged in them. Likewise, two sub-jails with a capacity of 306 prisoners are accommodating 664 inmates. Women's central jail, which has a capacity of 120 prisoners, is hosting 148 inmates. The construction of jails has started in 11 districts, including Amethi and Mahoba, where prisons with a capacity of 990 inmates each is been coming up. Also, the jails with capacity of 1,000 inmates will come up in Kushinagar, Chandauli, Auraiyya, Hapur, Sambhal, Amroha and Bhadohi, and 1,026 prisoner capacity in Hathras and 2,000 prisoner capacity in Shamli. The construction of a new central Jail in Lalitpur with a capacity of 2,000 inmates has been expedited. At the same time, the construction of second district jail of 1,000 inmate capacity has also started in Lalitpur. Funds have been approved for the repair and renovation of Bareilly's old jail, which will have a capacity of 2,579 prisoners. The construction of prisons with a capacity of 3,000 each in Moradabad and Muzaffarnagar, 2,000 each in Shahjahanpur, Badaun and Varanasi and 1,000 each in Jaunpur and Rampur and 5,000 in Kanpur city is also underway. By the end of March, the district jail with a capacity of 502 prisoners in Shravasti and 2,688 in Prayagraj will be ready. Along with this, one barrack with capacity of 30 prisoners is being constructed in Gorakhpur district jail, seven barracks with capacity of 30 prisoners in Varanasi central jail and four barracks with capacity of 30 prisoners in Mathura district jail. /IANS