Industrial activity inside the Tiruchi Central Prison is poised for expansion with prisoners to embark on the new job of producing sanitary napkins.
Thanks to Rs. 4.85 lakh granted by the District Welfare Committee, the fresh activity is expected to commence inside the sprawling jail by next month.
Tiruchi will be the third Central Prison in the State after Puzhal and Salem to manufacture sanitary napkins.
The funds granted to the prison authorities on Monday would be utilised for procurement of machines.
One unit consisting of four to five machines would be set up inside the jail for the manufacture of sanitary napkins. The inmates would be imparted hands-on training for two to three days by the suppliers of the machines prior to embarking on production, prison authorities told The Hindu . Raw material required for the manufacture of sanitary napkins would be procured in the same manner as was the case with respect to production of other products. Money for the new activity was granted on a project proposal forwarded by the prison authorities to the district administration.
This is the first time that the Tiruchi Prison is to manufacture sanitary napkins which would be supplied to the Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation, a State government undertaking, a prison official said. Collector Jayashree Muralidharan handed over a cheque for Rs. 4.85 lakh to the Superintendent of Prisons, Tiruchi, at the Collectorate on Monday.
The Tiruchi Prison accommodates under trials, remand prisoners, and convicts. It was the convicts who were mostly involved in prison industrial units manufacturing a mosaic of products such as file pads, bed-sheets, oil soaps, towels and woollen carpets, say the authorities.
Industrial units were started in the prison as a rehabilitation measure for the inmates and engage them in productive vocation during their sentence period.
