The Central Prison is gearing up to run a petrol station, a modern bakery, and an ultra-modern laundry on its campus shortly. And all the three will be run by convicts, who will be trained to run the petrol outlet, bake breads and cakes, and wash clothes using modern washing machines.
The petrol outlet has been in the pipeline for long as the GVMC has not finalised a piece of land near the prison. This has prompted Director-General of Prisons T. Krishna Raju to give permission to operate the outlet on the prison premises itself.
According to sources, the GVMC has not been able to give the land as a few persons filed a PIL stating that the identified land is a water body.
“Since we have permission to open the outlet inside the premises, we just have to obtain NOC from the GVMC and departments such as Revenue, Fire, and Health,” says Superintendent of Central Prison, Visakhapatnam, Indla Srinivas Rao.
The outlet will be a modern one with all facilities and will be leased to the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC). The company will train 70 prisoners in operating it.
“The Central Prison will use the proceeds for undertaking development activities and paying wages for the convicts,” said Dr. Srinivas.
This apart, 50 prisoners will be trained to run a bakery, which includes baking breads of various types, cakes, biscuits, and other products. The convicts will undergo training for 50 days and an outlet will be set up in the petrol station.
“Most of the products will be used in-house and sent to hospitals, and the remaining will be sold in the retail outlet. Machinery worth Rs. 8 lakh is being procured,” said Dr. Srinivas.
The Central Prison is also procuring a 65-kg and a 15-kg ultra modern washing machine to run a laundry at a cost of Rs. 5 lakh.
“Apart from in-house laundry, we will be taking orders from hospitals and the proceeds will be used for paying wages to the convicts and bettering the infrastructure in the jail. We hope to launch the three ventures by June,” he said.
