The number of prisoners, suffering from mental illness, has been rising steadily in the state.
This was revealed in the Prison Statistics India 2020 released by theNational Crime Records Bureau(NCRB).
With 696 mentally ill inmates in 2020, Odisha stood second only to Uttar Pradesh, which had 1,507 mentally ill prisoners during the period.
In 2019, altogether 626 mentally ill inmates were lodged in different jails here, the NCRB report said.
The development assumes significance amid the last month assigning 15 psychiatrists and 13 clinical psychologists the task of screening the mental illnesses of jail inmates across the state and treating them.
The psychiatry department of theNational Institute of Mental Healthand Neurosciences (NIMHANS) in Bangalore was engaged by the Centre to prepare the advisory.
The state government has also constituted a three-member expert committee to find out the condition of inmates suffering from psychiatric ailments and the status of suicides in jails.