Chandigarh, March 28 (IANS) The Punjab government has legalised the transfer of prisoners from its state jails to other states. The Transfer of Prisoners (Punjab Amendment) Bill 2025, introduced by Jails Minister Laljit Singh Bhullar, was unanimously passed by the legislative assembly on Friday.
“Punjab being a border state is confronting severe internal security challenges and various jails currently house high-risk inmates, including those involved in anti-national activities, individuals linked with international agencies, terrorists, category ‘A’ gangsters, smugglers and dangerous criminals who attempt to operate their criminal networks from within prisons,” he said.
Bhullar said amending the Prisoners Transfer Act of 1950 had become imperative to establish a legal mechanism for transferring undertrial prisoners between states.
“The existing legislation lacked provisions allowing Punjab’s imprisoned undertrials to be relocated to jails in other states,” he said.
The Jail Minister further said that these amendments were crucial, considering the potential threats to law and order and the state’s security and to ensure the smooth functioning of the prison system.
The Bill’s core purpose was to provide legal authorization for transferring undertrial prisoners from Punjab to other states, he added.
Meanwhile, Punjab Police on Friday launched efforts to integrate the four key departments dealing with emergency services — Police, Health, Fire and Disaster Management — into a unified response network with the goal of reducing emergency response time from 25 minutes to eight minutes, setting a new national benchmark.
During the ‘Badalda Punjab’ Budget for 2025-26, the government has allocated Rs 125 crore for expansion of Emergency Response Vehicles fleet and upgradation of district control rooms, while Rs 53 crore was allocated for construction of new ‘Dial 112’ headquarters.
Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav told the media that the comprehensive overhaul, being implemented on war footing by the police, focuses on three critical areas with first being establishing a seamless coordination between departments through technological integration, where all emergency calls to Dial 112 will be automatically routed to the relevant services.
–IANS
vg/pgh
