Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today inaugurated the newly-constructed central jail in Keraniganj, on the outskirts of the capital.

She opened the jail by unveiling a plaque and held a ribbon cutting ceremony to commence the administrative building of the Central Jail.

A munajat was also held offered seeking peace and prosperity of the country and its people.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid and Inspector General of Prisons Brig Gen Syed Iftekhar Uddin were, among others, present.

The new central jail was built on 194.41 acres of land with a cost of Tk406 crore.

With the inauguration of the new jail, the decades-old Dhaka Central Jail will be removed from Nazimuddin Road in Dhaka to Keraniganj. The shifting will be completed within this month.

The Dhaka Central Jail now accommodates over 8,000 prisoners against its capacity of 2,600.

In the new prison, there will be two jails, one for males (Jail-1) and another for females (Jail-2). Besides, there will be a platform for execution, a hospital and residential units for the prison staff.

The administrative department, logistics and important documents of the Dhaka jail will first be taken to Keraniganj.

The female inmates of the jail will be shifted to Kashimpur Central Jail in Gazipur as the female jail unit in Keraniganj is under construction.

The seven units of the Jail-1 have a capacity to accommodate 4,590 prisoners. There will be two six-storey buildings for the convicts. Each of them will accommodate 500 convicts. There will be separate buildings for risky inmates and prisoners with division facilities in Keraniganj.

The prison authorities received the land in Keraniganj from the Dhaka deputy commissioner.

A 200-bed hospital and a daycare centre were also set up on the new jail premises office in May, 2004. They later handed it over to the Public Works Department for building the structures.

The project for constructing jails in Keraniganj on 194 acres of land was approved in the 2005-06 fiscal year. The construction of the new jail began in 2008.

The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) in October, 2014 approved the second revision of the project, titled 'Construction of central jail for the under trial prisoners in Dhaka (Keraniganj)' costing Tk 406.35 crore.

The present central jail in the city's Lalbagh area will be turned into a modern place with schools, shopping malls, parks and landscaping after shifting all prisoners while there will be a museum to preserve the memory of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and four other national leaders.