30 July, 2017
The Government has to spend about Rs. 500 million annually to maintain about 19,000 prisoners who are now housed in 20 prisons countrywide. The government has to spend Rs. 703 daily to maintain a single prisoner, W.E.Jayathilake, Kurunegala District Divisional Secretary told a conference of school heads of the Kurunegala District at the Bingiriya Youth Training Centre, Kurunegala last week..
The annual expenditure of maintaining one prisoner is Rs. 256,741. The daily cost of meals of a prisoner is Rs.132 and the annual cost Rs. 48,111. “These facts are shown by the Prisons Department in its yearly report for 2016,” said Jayathilake.