KOCHI: When the state government announced a sharp revision in daily wages for prison inmates -- Rs 620 for skilled work, Rs 560 for semi-skilled and Rs 530 for unskilled -- it was meant to signal reform and dignity of labour behind bars. But for T K Rajeevan, an undertrial who once earned less than Rs 20 a day inside the prison, the news landed like a cruel irony.
Rajeevan, the fifth accused in the Edakkara Maoist case, is still fighting for what was once the minimum inmate wage of Rs 63 a day and the maximum of Rs 168 a day. Out on bail now, he remembers his days in the Viyyur High Security Prison not for the crimes alleged against him, but for a long, exhausting battle to earn something to support a family pushed to the brink by his incarceration.
Picked up by the police in November 2020 as an alleged CPI (Maoist) member, Rajeevan was first lodged in the Kannur Central Jail before being shifted to Viyyur in June 2021. At the time of his arrest, his son was in Class IV, and his wife, a tribal woman, was already struggling to hold the household together. “I thought I would get bail soon,” Rajeevan recalls. “But then Covid happened. The case dragged on and the financial situation at home became unbearable.”
By late 2023, with no income and mounting worries about his wife and child, Rajeevan approached the jail superintendent, seeking minor work inside the prison. When that failed, he moved the NIA Special Court in Kochi. In July 2024, the court directed the prison authorities to allot him work.
It took another eight months for that order to translate into action. In March 2025, Rajeevan was finally assigned work -- making nettipattam, the forehead ornament used to adorn elephants during temple festivals. After two days of training, he got to work. He laboured for 24 days that month and made 12 nettipattams, each measuring around 22 by 7 inches, sold outside for roughly Rs 300 a piece.
“I thought I would at least earn enough to send something home,” he says. What he received instead was Rs 441 for the entire month -- around Rs 18 a day. In April 2025, after 21 days of work, he was paid Rs 347. From March to August 2025, his wages followed the same pattern. Unable to make sense of the calculations, Rajeevan once again knocked on the doors of the court, this time pleading for the minimum wage.
Court records accessed by TNIE show that the Viyyur prison superintendent told the NIA court that Rajeevan was eligible for an apprentice wage of Rs 63 a day only if he produced two nettipattams daily. In March, while he worked for 24 days, he managed to make only 14 pieces instead of the expected 48, and was therefore paid proportionately. Rajeevan remains unconvinced. “I did what I could. How does anyone survive on Rs 18 a day,” he asks.
Life outside prison has offered little relief. His bail conditions bar him from entering Wayanad and require weekly attendance at the NIA office and frequent court appearances. Forced to stay in Kochi, he finds it nearly impossible to secure work. “My wife has health issues. My son is now in Class IX. I can’t even visit them freely, let alone support them financially,” he says. “I’m surviving on the kindness of friends.”
Rajeevan’s story exposes the gap between policy and lived reality. For some, the promise of reform arrives too late -- or not at all. Behind every statistic and wage revision is a human life, counting days and coins and hoping that justice will one day mean not just freedom but dignity enough to earn a living.