Partnership with corporates will help improve facilities for prisoners, Inspector-General of Prisons B. Sunil Kumar has said.
The Prisons Department is earning a profit of nearly Rs. 2 lakh per day from the petrol dispensing outlet being operated by the Chanchalguda Jail in Hyderabad.
“The outlets in Rajahmundry and Kadapa are not only a good source of income for the department but also an assured employment for the prisoners,”
Mr. Kumar said while speaking at a programme organised on the occasion of extension of the Memorandum of Understanding the Department of Prison Rehabilitation had with the Himalaya Drug Company on training of prisoners in cultivating medicinal plants.
Partnership with a telecom service provider helped provide access to a telephone for the inmates.
This facility would be extended to all the district jails and sub-jails by the year-end. “The telephone installation charges are borne by the telecom company itself,” he said.
Corporates imparting training or setting up a production facility in the prisons would not only help the prisoners learn a skill for a sustainable livelihood but also the resourc
e-strapped department pay prisoner wages in time.
The drug company has helped the prisoners in Anantapur Open Prison Farm cultivate medicinal grade alfalfa. On completion of their term, the prisoners would be able to take up its cultivation on their own land and earn a good income from it.
“ Munaga that is proposed to be cultivated in Visakhapatnam Central Prison is a high-quality plant that produces over two-ft.-long drumsticks.
The prisoners would have to collect the leaves as they are used for making medicines,” he explained. DIG of Prisons, Coastal Andhra Range,
A. Narasimha, Superintendent of Visakhapatnam Central Prison I. Srinivasa Rao, officials, and men from the Prison Department were present.
