Thane to soon get an open prison

The Thane Central Jail premises will be soon housing an open prison in addition to the existing infrastructure here, Director General of Prisons, Meera Borawankar has said.

The DG announced this here while speaking to newsmen last evening after inaugurating a sales outlet for products manufactured by the convicts in the jail.

She said as per the prison policy, work of rehabilitation of prisoners is undertaken and under the programme, skilled personnel get their products manufactured from the convicts.

The convicts get paid wages for the same and they can purchase required material worth Rs 2000 from it, she said.

She appealed to citizens to give preference to the Thane Jail outlet for purchases as the products manufactured by the inmates here are of good quality.

In reply to one question she said that in Yerawada Prison at Pune, perishables and bakery products besides goods made of wood are manufactured, the sale of which runs into lakhs per day.

To another query, she said that convicts are given increased wages as per the recent government orders issued in August 2014 and in keeping with the revision recommended by a committee for the same.

Also present on the occasion were Thane Police Commissioner Vijay Kamble, Special IG Prisons Bipin Kumar Singh and Thane District Collector P Velrasu.