Maharashtra: Prisoners make high quality furniture for Nagpur court under rehabilitation programme

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Inmates from four prisons in Maharashtra have been engaged in making high quality teakwood furniture for a new court building in Nagpur as part of their rehabilitation and to provide an employment opportunity to them, an official said. The prisoners working on the project get wages under the skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled categories, the official told PTI.

"Interestingly, the chairs on which the judges and other staff of the Nagpur sessions court's extension building would be sitting are being made by those convicted by such courts," Nagpur Central Jail's superintendent Anup Kumre said.

Such work contracts are really benefitting the jail inmates. They are getting a good employment opportunity in the jail itself, he said.

Nagpur Central Jail's deputy superintendent Deepa Agey said prisoners lodged at Nagpur, Kolhapur and Nashik and Yerwada (Pune) jails are working in the carpentry section of the respective prisons to make 22 types of furniture required for the new extension building of the Nagpur sessions court.

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"These are very high quality teakwood furniture pieces which are otherwise not available outside with private suppliers. We make the chairs of judges. The Pune Central Jail makes special judges' chairs with monogram which cannot be made outside," said Kumre.

The Nagpur Central Jail had received a contract of Rs 5.50 crore for the furniture. The work had started in March 2021 and the delivery of these furniture items is now in the final stages, Agey said.

The intention of the prison administration behind this exercise is correction and rehabilitation of prisoners and provide them some employment in jail, she said.

"We continuously get guidance from Additional Director General (Prisons) Amitabh Gupta and DIG (Prisons) Swati Sathe in pursuing and completing such projects," Agey added.

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