Lucknow, Jan 18 (IANS): Additional CCTV cameras have been installed in 30 jails of Uttar Pradesh where security is being upgraded.

DG, prisons, Anand Kumar said that it is being done following directives of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to monitor activities of notorious criminals and mafia dons languishing in jails.

All the prisons in the state will have upgraded security arrangements by February, he added.

Last year, the Jail department had sent a proposal to the government to release a budget of Rs 9.76 crore for the upgradation of prisons' security.

Kumar said that all the 30 jails in the state would have 933 CCTV cameras by February.

In all, 670 new CCTVs have been installed and the defective ones are being replaced.

"The highest number of 46 cameras have been installed in Agra District Jail. All these cameras are directly connected to the prison headquarters so that the prisons can be monitored 24 hours through a video wall at the command centre operating in the prison headquarters," the DG said.

Cameras are also being replaced in the Banda jail where mafia don Mukhtar Ansari is lodged.

CCTV cameras have been installed in central prisons in Agra, Bareilly, Fatehgarh, Naini and Varanasi.

District jails in Agra, Firozabad, Aligarh, Sultanpur, Kanpur, Kanpur Dehat, Bulandshahr, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Muzaffarnagar, Varanasi, Etawah, Ghazipur, Mirzapur, Faizabad, Barabanki, Kannauj, Azamgarh, Sitapur, Chitrakoot, Gorakhpur and Moradabad have got additional CCTV cameras.

New CCTV cameras have been installed in Unnao, Banda and Pratapgarh, while defective ones are being replaced.

The Chief Minister had recently sanctioned Rs 6 lakhs for replacing defective CCTV cameras and increasing the number of cameras in 20 more jails in the state.

Anand Kumar said that the bidding process for the purchase of additional cameras has been started from the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal which will be completed by April.