HYDERABAD: After implementing schemes to reform prisoners, the prisons department in Telangana has begun initiating steps to ensure that people, who are released after serving their jail term, are integrated with the mainstream society.
In a bid to ensure job security for prisoners and help them lead a dignified life after release, prisons department is planning to set up placement cells in prisons. As part of ‘Project Mahaparivartan’, the department has begun roping in industrialists, corporates and philanthropists to conduct placement drive in prisons in order to provide livelihood to prisoners who are released after serving their jail term.
Prisoners are trained in a variety of skills to help them find a source of income after their release. While long-term prisoners are provided with opportunities to acquire vocational skills, short term prisoners are imparted training in carpentry, masonry, plumbing, electric wiring, house wiring and other works. The prisons department is also running petrol pumps in Hyderabad in order to provide livelihood to prisoners.
According to the DIG of the Telangana Prisons Department A Narasimha, about 500 hard-core prisoners have been identified for reform and rehabilitation with the help of Ramakrishna Math and Osmania University’s Sahayam Centre for counselling and they will join mainstream life once the reform programme is complete. The prisoners are undergoing motivational and behavioural lessons also.
As per the plan, the prison welfare officers across all the prisons, including district jails, will monitor the activities of these prisoners after their release and recommend their services to prospective employers based on the performance during reformation process.