The entire funding for the jail would be provided by the Centre, said a Punjab government functionary. An official privy to the jail project, told The Indian Express that “the cellular prison” will have cells in “radial” blocks, which will help jail staff to monitor the prisoners effectively.

The details of the proposed jail indicate that it has been designed on the lines of the British colonial prison “the Cellular Jail”, notoriously referred to as Kala Pani, in Port Blair of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which had solitary confinement cells in blocks radiating from a central tower which served to keep a watch on inmates.

“The whole prison shall be made as a cellular prison and will be divided into various zones as per functional requirement, to avoid inter-mixing of similar gangs and confrontation of anti-gangs and curtail their movement,” said the jail department official dismissing that the jail pattern was akin to ‘Kala Pani’ jail which he said was “notorious” for all the “negative connotations” associated with that.

Elaborating on upcoming jail in Ludhiana district, the official said “All the major as well as potentially vulnerable high risk prisoners in will be transferred and lodged in this prison.”

An area of up to 50 meters around the outer boundary wall of the prison will be declared as a prohibited zone. Among other things, in what is known as “throw” from outside, the state prison department has been facing a major challenge to check the entry of prohibited items into the jail. Another salient feature of the upcoming jail would be that it would house a dedicated court complex and video conferencing infrastructure for hearings inside the complex, to curtail the movement of the prisoners and in the process prevent scenarios where prisoners attempt to escape if taken outside the jail for court hearings. On similar lines, to avoid movement of prisoners outside the prison, in house hospital facility would be provided in the jail.

“The prison will be equipped with state-of-the-art equipment for security, surveillance and incident response and special forces will be deputed for security on rotational basis,” said the official, adding that “This high security prison is anticipated to be a game changer in controlling the nefarious activities of prisoners, and to prohibit smuggling of contraband inside the prisons as well as the maintenance of law and order in the state of Punjab.”

Asked why such a high security jail was needed, Punjab Additional Director General of Police (Prisons) Arun Pal Singh said, “Earlier, a high security jail was constructed in Bathinda. The upcoming jail in Ludhiana is in continuation of having more such jails in the state.”

Currently, there are 10 central prisons among the 25 prisons in the state. Overall, the prisons across the state have a sanctioned capacity to lodge 26,081 inmates, but more than 32,000 inmates are lodged in the prisons, making these overcrowded.

Punjab prisons have infamous for use of mobile phones by the inmates from inside the jail and videos of inmates holding celebrations inside the jail on occasions like birthdays going viral on social media platforms. The State prisons are also notorious for drug smugglers and dreaded gangsters operating their cartels from inside the jail.

Currently, most of high-risk dreaded gangsters and drug peddlers are lodged in high security zone of Bathinda Central jail. An official said top drug smugglers are among those lodged in high security zone in Bathinda jail where cutting edge technology to jam all mobile phone signals in the high security zone to ensure they were not able to operate their cartels from inside the jail.