Prisons set to turn nerve centres of growth

Prisons DGP V K Singh says efforts are on to provide livelihood to released prisoners

• The dept makes a turnover of over 296 crore in 2016
• Earns a profit of over 7.13 crore
• Acquires 104 vehicles to become self-sufficient when it comes to mobility

Hyderabad: The Department of Prisons and Correctional Services has been striving to make prisons the nerve centres of growth, employment generation and attitude formation. Addressing the annual media conference on Friday, Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services V K Singh said prison departments from other States were looking at Telangana for training and guidance in developing model prisons.

Stating that deaths in prisons this year was only 24 as against 56 in 2014, he said the department wanted to cut down the number of admission of prisoners as in Norway and Sweden. “We have decided to take mass awareness programme with the help of citizens and the released prisoners which may go a long way in resolution of disputes in villages.

We would like to constitute group of volunteers at district, mandal and village level who will counsel and spread awareness among the litigants to resolve their disputes among themselves,” Singh said. The Prisons Department chief also said Commissioners of Police in the State had been requested to allow their professional team of counselors to counsel the parties in family and marital disputes before they were sent to jails.

“Most of the family and marital disputes arise because of differences of opinion and not due to physical assault. Prisons department will get professional team of counselors who are counseling the prisoners inside the jail to counsel the litigating parties at the police centres before they are sent to jail by the police,” he said.

Referring to how the department will act as centre of employment generation, he said the department had already identified 50 pieces of land to start petrol pumps. In addition to this, 50 more pieces of land will be identified in the next three months and as many as 100 petrol pumps will be opened by the department by the end of 2017.

This would give employment to a minimum of 2,000 released prisoners and retired employees of the Prisons Department, he said. He also said that fitness centres attached to petrol pumps would be opened to be run by the released prisoners or inmates of the open air jails. Nominal charges would be collected from the users of these fitness centres.

The department had made a turnover of over Rs 296 crore through its industries of which it has earned a profit of over Rs 7.13 crore in 2016. The department had purchased 104 vehicles since 2014 to become self-sufficient when it came to mobility and these vehicles were purchased out of the earnings of the department, he said.