A sanitary napkin making cum training unit was installed at the Coimbatore Central Prison on Thursday.
Superintendent of the prison K. Anandan told The Hindu on Friday that the unit can employ 20 inmates at a time and through multiple shift modes they could employ 80 to 90 inmates in the unit.
The Superintendent said that the prison here has 1,719 inmates, of which 852 are convicts.
“About 350 convicts are employed in the various industrial units – such as weaving, book binding and file making, tailoring, handloom, boiler and tape making. The napkin unit would increase the number of convicts working in the prison to close to 440,” he said.
This makes more than have the convicts of the prison employable and helps them gain experience in working in an industry as part of their rehabilitation process.
He said that the inmates will be given training on napkin making for 15 days, after which production will begin in a full-fledged manner.
“The production will initially be 1,000 napkins a day as the inmates would be new to napkin making. After gaining experience the production could increase to 3,000 pieces a day,” he added.
Mr. Anandan said that the napkins would be marketed through the government’s schemes such free napkin for school children and the requirements in government hospitals across the state.
“A second napkin making unit with the same production capacity will be installed in the prison in a couple of months,” he concluded.
This machine comes as a donation from Chennai based HCL Foundation.
This is a special donation as every employee of the renowned Information Technology firm have contributed at least one rupee from their pocket to donate it to the prison here and to other central prisons across the state.
Chennai based Lakshmi Associates was also involved in the project.
The napkin manufacturing unit was inaugurated by Mr. Anandan in the presence of the Associate Vice President of HCL Technologies, Chennai, Srimathi Shivashankar, V. R. Jayaraman of Lakshmi Associates and the staff and inmates of the Coimbatore Central Prison.
