India, Feb. 7 -- The jail department of the Maharashtra government is facing a severe administration crisis on account of many posts being vacant. This has also affected the process of granting paroles and furloughs to prisoners.

The power to grant parole, which used to be with the divisional commissioner (an IAS officer), was given to the deputy inspector-general (DIG) of jails on December 2 last year. The jail department has five DIG posts but currently only two are occupied, leading to a huge backlog. Many convicts have begun filing appeals with the additional director-general (ADG) of jails or moving the high court on account of this.

The two filled DIG posts are headed by Yogesh Desai and Swati Sathe. Sathe manages the Pune and Nag...