Appraisal time! Prison dept proposes four-five times hike in wages of inmates

Every convict in the jail has an account in which wages are deposited. While some use the money to buy objects of daily needs from the jail commissary, some others send the money home and some use it for legal expenses. All these inmates get their all saved earnings from the jail term upon their release.

In the wage hike that was implemented in August last year, the skilled workers got a hike from Rs 67 to Rs 74, semi-skilled inmates from Rs 61 to Rs 67 and unskilled workers from Rs 48 to Rs 53 per day. The outgoing Prison Department head Amitabh Gupta said that a proposal of wage hike for inmates has been recently sent to the state government. The government has recently issued orders to transfer Gupta from his post of Additional Director General of Police, Prisons Department to Additional Director General of Police, Special Task Force.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Gupta said, “We have recently sent the proposal which is currently under consideration of the Departments of Labour and Finance. The proposal aims to hike the wages above the nationwide minimum wages under the skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled.”

As per the submission to the state government, the daily wage for a skilled inmate is proposed to be increased from Rs 74 to Rs 322, which is over four times rise. For the semi skilled inmates the proposed hike is from Rs 67 to Rs 302 per day, which is also over four times the rise. And for the unskilled workers the proposed rise is from Rs 53 to Rs 288, which is over five times.

The prison industrial units have carpentry and woodwork, blacksmithy, handlooms and machine looms, leatherwork, handicrafts, machine assembly, bakery, paper craft, foundry, car washing and laundry centres, eateries and canteen and sculpture work. In addition to the prison themselves, a large number of government departments and courts purchase these products in bulk quantities. All these products are sold under the Maharashtra Prison industry brand name ‘Ma.Ka.’ as short for Maharashtra Karagruh, which has its dedicated showroom near Yerawada Central Prison in Pune.

The prison farming includes production of vegetables, fruits and food grains along with supplementary businesses like poultry farming, fisheries, dairy, beekeeping, mushroom cultivation and cultivation of sandalwood, bamboo cultivation and teak. Officials said that a large chunk of the produce from the farms of the individual prisons is used by them for daily food preparations or is supplied to the neighbouring prisons as per their requirement. In cases when the produce is excess to the requirement of the prisons, it is sold in the local markets through the respective Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees.

According to the latest number on prison population of Maharashtra as many as 40,428 inmates are lodged in prisons across Maharashtra that have a sanctioned capacity of 27.110. Maharashtra has a total of 59 prisons that include nine maximum security central prisons, 19 minimum security open prisons and 31 district jails located across the state. Of the total population 7477 are convicts, majority of whom, except those with security risks, are employed in industrial and farming tasks at the prisons.