Men at Vellore jail face hours-long lines for toilets

The queue for toilets begins at 2 a.m. at the Vellore Central Prison with only three usable toilets available for each block housing 70 male prisoners, inmates told TNIE.

- Rajalakshmi Sampath

As a result, inmates wait over two hours every morning to access the facilities.

On the one hand, the prison manual says prisoners must arise at 5:30 a.m.; on the other, the All India Committee on Jail Reforms recommends a toilet-prisoner ratio of 1:6. With the jail in compliance with neither, inmates wake up hours earlier just to use the toilets.

One former inmate, who was released in July, told TNIE that it was a daily ordeal for all the inmates of the prison. "When I would wake up, there would be at least 30 people in my block already waiting in line for hours to use the toilet," he said.