Scholarly pursuits at Gulbarga jail

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Scholarly pursuits at Gulbarga jail

Tuesday February 13 2007 13:21 IST

GULBARGA: The Gulbarga Central Prison is in news for some good

reasons. Here the convicts are showing interest to get themselves

educated. As many as 22 convicts out of the total 350 who have been

sentenced for more than five years have enrolled their names for

distance education for the current year.

 

In the entire state of Karnataka, about 268 convicts from different

jails have opted for distance education. Though the facility has been

extended to prisoners from the last few years, it is only this year

that the convicts of Gulbarga jail have availed for it.

 

Among them there is Vinay Singh, a convict serving life sentence who

is a post graduate in Hindi. He wants to do a course in Hindi

translations. He has been made the in charge of the batch of 22

convicts who are availing the distance education facility.

 

All prisoners enrolled under distance education are linked to the

correspondence course unit of the Bangalore University. The state

government is meeting the cost of distance education.

 

The prison has got a branch library of the department of public

libraries with over 4000 books. About 20 newspapers and periodicals

are available for prisoners. Literacy programme has also made its

dent in the jail.

 

Prison Superintendent T H Lakshminarayana said in the year 2006,

about 250 convicts have been made literate. "Besides transforming

them from within, education will also provide opportunities once they

are out of jail," Lakshminarayana said.

 

HORTICULTURE MISSION: The prison has been selected for the launch of

Central government's ambitious Horticulture Mission being launched in

selected districts of Karnataka from the current year. In about 60

acres of cultivable land, a number of horticulture crops will be

cultivated through drip irrigation. An agriculture pond will be

constructed.

 

All high-tech horticultural practices will be put in to practice

here. The scheme may prove a success. Thanks to the readily available

services of prisoners to toil over.

 

Besides keeping prisoners busy in horticultural activities, the

prison in due course will also earn handsome revenue by marketing

horticulture products.

 

The prison is self sufficient in clothes as the skilled convicts

weave it on powerlooms. They also manufacture beautiful carpets and

bedsheets on orders from different government departments.

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