The transgender community will soon get a shot in the arm from the Prisons Department of Telangana.
Transgender women will be hired to run a petrol pump to be operated by the department, said Director-General of Prisons and Correctional Services Vinoy Kumar Singh.
The development comes at a time when the transgender community has been campaigning for equal rights and raising issues of discrimination and unemployment.
The petrol pump fully operated by the transgender community will be on the lines of the all-women petrol pump at Chanchalguda, another initiative of the department and which has seen much success.
“It is sad to see a person from the transgender community seeking alms for survival. They are denied employment and are looked down upon by society. So, we have decided to provide them with employment by opening a petrol pump operated by the staff from the transgender community,” Mr Singh told media here on Friday.
In the next three months, the department would open 20 petrol pumps on private lands in the State to provide employment to released prisoners, he said.
He said 17 out of 49 prisons in the State were shut down temporarily as there were no prisoners due to reformation and rehabilitation programmes taken up by the department.
The closed jails would be used as social welfare centres or special homes for beggars, destitute, orphans etc.. A proposal for extension of Anand Ashram to other districts had been pending with the State government for more than a year now, the Director-General said.
Prisons department, which was aiming to become self-sufficient by 2020, had decided to constitute a Housing Cooperative Society in Hyderabad and Warangal for the welfare of their staff.
“Our staff should not remain homeless after retirement and this will go a long way in curbing corruption,” Mr Singh said.
Further, to cater to the needs of middle-class people, the department was chalking out plans to take up housing development. “We will construct resort-like gated community at very affordable prices for middle-class families across the State,” he said.
