Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala): An Open Prison and Correctional Home for males near Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram is pioneering a bold experiment in rehabilitation as it is empowering inmates to become experts in sustainable farming practices.
Wearing white shirts that bear the numbers allocated to them by the department, prisoners including murder convicts are now carefully nurturing life, and finding joy and salvation in the process.
"Our main aim is correction. We aim to help prisoners who have somehow lost their way to assimilate into society by correcting their course, instead of punishing them. According to the government's research, for this purpose it's better to house them (prisoners) in open prisons instead of closed jails," Rajesh Kumar, Superintendent In Charge of the Open Prison, told PTI.
The inmates have transformed 472 acres of land into a thriving farm in Nettukalther, challenging conventional notions of incarceration. From cultivating rubber to raising cattle and honeybees, the prisoners are learning valuable skills that will serve them well upon release.
"There is something called agricultural therapy. Nurturing a plant and seeing it flower and bear fruit has proved to have a very positive mental transformation in people. We hope this will help them lead a happy and crime-free life when they leave here. They are given appropriate wages for this work," Kumar said.
Ajith Singh WR, Agriculture Officer of Open Prison, said it was a combined effort of the prisoners and the prison officials. "As part of these efforts, we have grown plantain bananas, vegetables like okra, green chillies, bitter gourd and snake gourd - all that is needed to make an Onasadhya (feast)," he said.
As Onam approaches, the prisoners are thrilled to be reaping the rewards of their hard work, harvesting the fresh vegetables they grew over the past few months with care and dedication.
More than 350 prisoners are housed in this open prison. Besides rubber plantations, they grow vegetables, and have a dragon fruit farm, a grass farm, and honey bee cages, using almost all available land inside the vast campus. There is a large check dam within the property, to meet the irrigation needs. The cow dung and slurry from the dairy farm, along with the vermicompost from the vermicomposting yard, are used as fertiliser.
The prison authorities generated a revenue of Rs 2.11 crore in the last financial year from agriculture activities alone. (With agency inputs)
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