Central prisons in Tamil Nadu are set to become factories with the State government clearing a proposal to establish a Prison Bazaar.
The ambitious project aims at enhancing the variety, quality and quantity of prison products and making them available in the retail market. With Freedom as its brand name, the prison products will deviate from the conventional practice of catering to government departments and enter the open market.
According to prison sources, qualified trainers have been identified to expose the inmates to the use of modern technology in the manufacturing industry. While competing in the market, the Freedom brand is expected to have an edge in terms of pricing even as prison authorities maintain there will be no compromise on quality. The prison industry extends to nine central prisons, three special prisons for women and nine district jails across the State where approximately 11,000 inmates are lodged.
Additional Director-General of Police (Prisons) S.K. Dogra says the acceptance of the Prison Bazaar concept was the most consequential step towards a comprehensive prison reforms programme.
“Once this concept is put into practice, the prisons will become factories. This will give multiple benefits such as utilising the man-hours available in the prison, employing inmates in a productive manner etc. The Chief Minister has a modern outlook and liberally supports all efforts towards systemic transformational changes.”
As part of the Prison Bazaar initiative, the inmates will be trained in productive skills, which they can utilise to earn a living after release.
The prisons, already into textile, leather, soaps, books, bakery and other industries, will enhance their range of products depending upon the market conditions.
Underlining the need for being quality conscious, Mr. Dogra says: “So far we were manufacturing goods for the police and other departments. Such government clients are not very demanding in terms of pricing, delivery schedule and quality, although we ourselves try to maintain this. But once you operate in the open market, you have to adopt the best commercial practices. So, naturally the entire process of manufacturing will have to move up the scale in terms of efficiency and quality.”
On how the project will help the prisoners, he says under the new system, the inmates will acquire the latest manufacturing techniques. On release from the prison, they will emerge as a trained, qualified and skilled labour. A portion of the revenue generated through the Prison Bazaar will be credited to their account.
Mr. Dogra says research will be done to decide upon the range of products to be manufactured in prisons. “I don't see any difficulty in marketing the products. Many of the prison inmates are highly skilled. Since they do not have any diversions within the prison, they usually work with greater focus. Also, we might work for a tie-up with organisations that may prefer goods produced in prisons because of the social reformation angle.”
Keywords: Prison Bazaar, Tamil Nadu prisons, prison products, Freedom brand
The comments of Mr. Lalatendu Keshari Das are noteworthy. Rarely such sensible comments are made. Though I have some reservations on some of his points, overall it is highly commendable.
Mr. Anand I, I hope you have a fair understanding of how difficult it is to kill time when you have got nothing to do. You talk about Industrail dispute Act's applicability, about working hours and stuff but i do not think the jail authorities are that bad. They might have taken care of all these issues.
Anyways, the prisoners work are being assured of a part of the earnings which they can use when out from the prison and also get to learn some skills. But notwithstanding any of this, the work helps them kill time in a useful way is itself a big boon for them.
The article talks about the quality and quantity aspect of the work, but out of many other issues that it misses out is what about the remuneration and not the compensation (as the article says)aspect? How is the profits going to be distributed? Are the prisoners getting minimum wages? How is their living and working conditions within these 'prison factories'? Are they allowed to form their own trade unions, free from the jail authorities? What about the working hours? If these are 'prison factories', then will these 'factories' come under the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947? What about other societal constraints like stigma?
If the answers to the above questions is in negative, then it would be categorized under slavery and not 'reformation'.
The article should have raised more fundamental questions rather than praising the jail authorities for this capitalist-technocratic endevour of the State.
In the US there are private prisons that exploit prisoners and lobby for longer prison centers. I hope this won't detoriarate to that level
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