Following incidents of jailbreaks and alleged irregularities inside state prisons, the Home department has withdrawn the Prison department’s right to recruit jail sepoys. Henceforth, the respective heads of the city and district police units will conduct recruitment drives for these all-important jail security personnel.

Currently, prison guards (jail sepoys) and officers are recruited by the Prisons department. A government resolution (GR) to change the recruitment agencies was issued on November 6. The GR says that since the jail sepoy and police sepoy are in the same pay scale and the provisions for their recruitment too are the same, the Home department thought of employing them in a uniform manner.