Tamil Nadu beats rest of India in rehabilitating prisoners

Karnataka comes second, rehabilitating 434 convicts and Telangana third with 319 jail inmates.

However, when it comes to financial assistance, the UP Prison Department leads with helping 667 inmates, while TN has helped only 97 prisoners.

Though Kerala has provided legal aid to as many as 15,216 inmates, no convict was rehabilitated in that state during the year 2019. Tamil Nadu has provided legal aid to 5,242 prisoners.

Telangana Prison Department, which ranks third in rehabilitating prisoners, also recorded a whopping Rs 599 crore in the sale of goods produced by the prison inmates during the year 2019 while TN stood second with Rs 72.96 crore. The State figure was Rs 72.79 crore in the previous year. Telangana Prisons’ sales figure in 2018 was Rs 206 crore.

Interestingly, there is a wide gap between the daily wage structure of prisoners in two states. TN pays Rs 200 per day for skilled workers, Rs 180 for semi-skilled workers and Rs 160 for unskilled workers. Telangana pays Rs 100 for skilled workers while semi-skilled and unskilled get only Rs 50 and Rs 30 respectively.

Karnataka daily wage structure for jail inmates is Rs 225 for skilled, Rs 200 for semi-skilled and Rs 175 for unskilled inmates.

Across the country, prisoners made products worth Rs 846 crore in 2019.