The prison bazaar in Tirunelveli has generated a turnover of Rs.54 lakh over the last one year and it has yielded a profit of Rs.13 lakh, according to R. Kanagaraj, Superintendent of Prisons, Central Prison, Palayamkottai.
Prison authorities are instrumental in training the prison inmates for producing a variety of items sold out from the bazaar. To motivate and guide the prisoners on self-employment opportunities, they were exposed to skill development programmes through 86 different modules.
The prisoners had been engaged in their routine of making Indian sweets, handloom work, plumbing and electrical works, carpentry, candle making, cooking food, tailoring, notebook binding, pulp making, screen printing and several other works after the training.
Efforts were on to introduce production of sanitary napkins and maternity pads soon by trained prisoners, he told The Hindu on Saturday.
Mr. Kanagaraj said manufacturing of paver blocks by the prison inmates had been gaining momentum. Apart from the existing paver block manufacturing unit under the aegis of the Tamil Nadu Police Housing Corporation and Tamil Nadu Prisons Department, one more unit would be set up in this prison.
On an average a day, about 2,000 blocks were being manufactured and the finished goods would cater to the needs of the Tamil Nadu Police Housing Corporation.
With copper slag wastes being collected from an industry in Tuticorin and with a mixture of sand and cement, paver blocks were being produced. Twenty trained prisoners had been engaged in this task.
This manufacturing unit was launched in September 2014 with the initiative of Additional Director General of Police, Prisons, J.K. Tripathi, he recalled. More importantly, the Palayamkottai central prison had created a tie-up with Gandhigram Rural University to offer education on the Gandhian values to prisoners to promote non-violence, self-tolerance and peace.
Programmes on controlling anger, stress and time management would be scheduled as part of the education. Currently 1,200 inmates, including 650 convict prisoners and 550 remand prisoners, were being reformed and rehabilitated in this central prison, he added.
