Shopping for floor cleaners? Here is a neem-based phenyl for your use. Coming straight from the Tihar Jail factory. Made by its inmates. Brand, TJS.
Yes, adding to the impressive list of products that the factory inside Jail No. 2 produces — from biscuits to track suits, shoes to school desks to handmade paper and more — all the 19 outlets of Tihar Haat across Delhi will now keep a range of cleaning products. Perfumed liquid soaps, glass cleaners, toilet cleaners, neem-based phenyl, white phenyl…the list of products from the jail's modest chemical unit is impressive. Praveen Kumar Sharma, Deputy Superintendent and head of the jail factory, says, “So far, we have made only the black phenyl in our chemical unit. They are supplied only to the Government establishments. To widen our range of products, we have started a new initiative.”
To help the inmates learn how to make the products, the jail authorities have brought in a Delhi-based private player, Shine India, which supplies a variety of disinfectants to malls across the city. Among other products, Shine India will share its formula for making a neem-based phenyl for which it claims to be the only manufacturer in the Delhi market.
R.S. Bindra, the owner of Shine India, sounds pretty excited about the project. “We are only a day old at the Tihar factory. We are beginning with four prisoners; give us a few more days, we will push the number to 8 surely and then more.” He says, his idea is, “More and more inmates should learn the skill as it can help them earn a modest living not just inside the jail but when they get out of it too.” And if they want to join his factory after leaving the jail, “We can always absorb them.”
On the first day itself, “the prisoners learnt to make liquid soaps, the neem-based phenyl and perfumed glass cleaners.”
Shine India's contract to train the prisoners at Tihar is only for a year. “But we have been asked to check the central jail in Chandigarh too. In just two-three days, I will be there, looking at the possibility of imparting the skill to prisoners there. If all goes well, we shall be training inmates in all the central jails of the country.” And given a chance, the Delhi businessman says he would like to start a perfumery unit at Tihar too. “Won't it be a nice to use a Tihar-made limited edition perfume,” he asks with a grin.
