Convicts to open shop in jails

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">BANGALORE: Running a business from jail is not always illegal. Convicts in Bangalore Central Jail have been making furniture for the High Court for some time now. You can go to any jail in the city and place your order for furniture at the superintendent’s office. Manufacturing units comprising skilled labourers will execute your design and the product will cost you just a fraction of its market price.Central jails across the state have workshops where convicts are trained to manufacture sofas, cots, chairs and other artefacts.<br /><br />Belgaum and Mysore central jails are known for the leather purses their inmates make. Belgaum jail is also famed for its footwear, especially Kolhapuri. There is a training centre specialised in making <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">shamianas (pandals)</span> and tents in Gulbarga central jail.<br /><br />The prison-centred cottage industry also churns out fabrics.Recently, a Mysore-based hospital picked up 2,000 rolls of bandages from the jail unit. Most jails are equipped to make designer and plain candles. Embroidery for <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">churidars, kurtas</span> and paintings on bedsheets are their speciality. Table mats and napkins too are available. The jails sees manufacture of prolific quantities of soap and phenyl, mostly for internal use.<br /><br />Now the products are set to hit the market. DGP Prisons B.S. Sial said, "We are trying to start a store on the premise of the Central Jail in Parappana Agrahara under the brand name Kay Jay (Karnataka Jail) products." "The output of the jail workshops is prolific and meets requisite quality standards.... We will have the requisite Karnataka Sales Tax and Central Sales Tax (KST and CST) accounts opened to accommodate the sales hereafter," Sial said.<br /><br />Jails used to have such stores to sell the products of the convicts about a decade ago, but the system ceased to function. The earlier accounts will have to be revived, sources said.<br /><br />The production cost is minimal because there are no minimum-wage conditions in the case of convicts. It involves cost of raw materials and about 15 per cent extra for rent, infrastructure and power. Besides, most of the labourers are very competent. As convicts are already catering to a huge lot of printing orders from the government printing press, there is no problem in the switchover to more commercial printing. "Greeting cards? May be, after we get an offset printing press for which we are trying to find a sponsor," said Sial, whose enthusiasm saw the launch of the first prison newsletter several months ago.</div> </div>