CHENNAI: A path-breaking initiative in the reform and rehabilitation process of prisoners is all set to take off at the Central prison in Puzhal on Thursday.
The first-of-its-kind jail project in Tamil Nadu and probably the entire country, the Mahatma Gandhi Community College, affiliated to Tamil Nadu Open University, will offer 15 vocational courses, including DTP operator, refrigeration and air-conditioning, fashion designing, multi-media, animation and catering, to the 14,000-odd prisoners incarcerated behind the high walls.
“The objective is to empower prisoners with equal knowledge, education and life-coping skills and inculcate in them a positive attitude, so that upon their release they become eligible for employment, get assimilated in society in a smooth manner and do not revert to crime,” Additional Director General of Police (Prisons) J K Tripathy told Express.
The classes will be conducted by teaching faculties from assigned community colleges of Tamil Nadu Open University and infrastructure such as examination halls and laboratories and other support systems will be created inside the prison, he said.
The project — which has been allocated about Rs 8 lakh by the State government — is also being supported by non-government organisations, the corporate sector and philanthropists, the prisons chief said.
Upon completion of the course, the inmates will be awarded a certificate and the prisons department will make all efforts to find suitable employment for them. It will function alongside the regular college offering conventional degree courses.
