It’s noon and the scene outside Puzhal prison looks like a mini mela . Men and women edge past the ‘for hire’ vehicles in the front yard to reach the row of Freedom shops, in what is obviously a popular “arcade”. Shopping bags soon fill with packed sweets, cakes, buns, puffs, chips and Indian snacks for future use and foil-boxes of lunch for now. The shops are accessible from the road, the stuff is of good quality and the prices are reasonable — but their popularity has an ingredient that overrides them all: the goodies come with a big dose of pride. They are prepared and sold by prisoners, and the customers are often their family members. Beams a woman shopper: “My husband didn't bring home a paisa when he was outside, but now I get a monthly amount he earns honestly inside!”
Preparing and marketing food items is only one of the activities the prison inmates engage in. At the prison office, S. Rajendran, DIG-Prisons (Chennai Range) and Rukmani Priyadarshini, Additional Superintendent, rattle off the initiatives so fast that I beg them to slow down to make notes. Education, technical or academic, is big. “Insiders” are trained to be four-wheeler mechanics, learn computer-use, and appear for degree-course exams of Open Universities. “Our boys Nesamani (Mechanic) and Munisamy (Fashion Designing) are gold medallists in their courses,” says the DIG, sounding like a proud dad. Meanwhile, the AS displays professionally stitched shirts on the table. “The prison bazaar opened last December; we make Rs.60,000-Rs.70,000 per day, and 20 per cent of the earnings go to the prisoner’s bank account,” they say. More Freedom outlets are at the Saidapet Court, IG’s Office, Egmore, Commissioner’s Office, Vepery and Police Housing, Kilpauk.
Some bake, others paint. Some others make sanitary items, assemble LED products, do art work, roll out appalams or build hollow-block bricks – all of it at commercial standards with help from NGOs. “We started with a small amount and the projects are now worth Rs. 7 lakh-plus,” say the officials. As they pause for breath, I ask: How is your new venture – organic farming – doing? “Oh, yes!” the DIG stands up, “let me take you on a tour.”
Shoba Menon of Nizhal had briefed me about it. In 2009, Nataraj, ADGP-Prisons, invited Nizhal to green the campus. Shoba’s team drew up a plan to teach inmates organic farming skills — “to heal the land and their minds.” It needed several rounds of conversations with experts, prisoners and officials to get everyone on board. Eventually, interest sprouted and the inmates were willing to try out the “new” farming method. “The initial months were challenging,” said Shoba. “But our goal was clear — greening both land and minds. And that we have been able to, with the extensive support of the Prison Department and the ADGP-Prisons, J. K. Tripathy.”
The farm is a marvel. The fruits of this “Make-in-Prison” labour spread across acres — my eyes jump from gourds to beans to melons to drumsticks to chillies to tomatoes to bananas to lady’s fingers — an organic-veggie heaven! Tons are harvested for kitchen use, greens reach the Freedom Bazaar. Shrubs and trees (mango, guava, iluppai, magizham , tabebuia) line the edges, casting a green shadow. “It was all barren, unproductive land, when we started,” says T. D. Babu, Nizhal. It was cleaned, ploughed, watered and enriched with organic manure. Seedlings were sown, transplanted in rows, and trellises built for climbers. “We care for them like they are our children,” say the gardeners.
In the pipeline is organic minor-millet farming. Looking to make this a professionally-run project, the DIG has signed an MoU with a marketing expert to produce and market them from Puzhal. This will establish the Freedom brand.
Material benefits of horti/agriculture in prisons are fine, but the social benefits are immense, Babu points out. “This is excellent use of human and bio-resources. Instead of being “state guests” the inmates now are leaders, engaged in gainful work. They regain self-esteem when they see themselves as producers/suppliers of essentials to society. Organic farming/forestry has wide ramifications on how we manage prisons and the people who have to stay there.”
All the central prisons in Tamil Nadu have started organic farming in small and big scales, says Babu. That every prison in the state converts all leaf litter/kitchen-waste into marketable vermi-compost is a feather in the Department's cap, says Shoba. “Time city-dwellers learnt from prison campuses!”
