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Pay and stay in prison for a day
Heard of homestay in a prison to encourage tourism? Now, in what can be termed as a novel initiative, the Telangana prisons department is planning to rent out a cell to tourists to stay for a day to experience the feeling of a prisoner in a jail.
Hyderabad: Heard of homestay in a prison to encourage tourism? Now, in what can be termed as a novel initiative, the Telangana prisons department is planning to rent out a cell to tourists to stay for a day to experience the feeling of a prisoner in a jail.
Hitting a brainwave, the historic Sangareddy Heritage Jail & Museum, which was inaugurated and open to public recently, has come up with this novel idea. This heritage jail & museum has a 219-year-old history.
Aptly called ‘Feel the Jail’, the programme looks to provide accommodation to tourists in one of the 100 cells and they would have to undergo what a prisoner would have to on a normal day in prison.
Explaining the concept, Telangana State Prisons Director General VK Singh said, “It would make people understand how it feels to be in a prison environment and would send a strong message of avoiding the jail.”
He further added that the heritage jail & museum would also help people get a peek into the history of prisons in Telangana.” The programme is expected to take off soon. There are also plans to develop an amusement park in the jail museum so that tourists would have a comfortable stay here.
VK Singh said the department is working closely with the tourism department to include the Sangareddy Heritage Jail & Museum in the tourist circuit.
During the stay, tourists will be provided only jail food and live the life of a prisoner. What is interesting is that the prisoners taking care of heritage jail are being paid and more employment would be generated with our new initiatives.
“Already, 51 prisoners are placed in private sector and 23 hardcore criminals are working in prisons petrol pumps after counselling. Our idea is to start 100 petrol pumps across the state so that 1,000 prisoners will be employed,” the DG said.
The department helped 3,132 prisoners to undergo vocational training, 881 were trained in computers and 549 persons were aided to finish higher secondary education through open universities.
“There are some repeat offenders who do not care much about imprisonments. To tackle them, we are planning special training sessions.
In some cases, police have gone out of their way to extend help to the innocent prisoners and helped them get relief through judicial system. Two such cases are seen in Warangal and Nizamabad prisons,” he said.
