Prisoners to raise oil palm saplings in 21 acres at new Warangal central jail

Twenty one acres of the land of Warangal central prison site at Mamnoor was allotted for developing the oil palm nursery.

Warangal: With the Telangana State Prisons Department entering into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with KN Bio Sciences (India) Pvt Ltd, 50 prisoners of the Warangal central jail are going to make some money by raising the oil palm saplings.

Twenty one acres of the land of Warangal central prison site at Mamnoor was allotted for developing the oil palm nursery. Since the State government is constructing a state of the art multi specialty hospital on the old premises of the central prison in Warangal city, the government allotted 101 acres of the land for constructing the new central prison at Mamnoor on the outskirts of the city.

While the majority of the prison inmates were shifted to different jails in the State, some of them, mainly under trial (UT) prisoners, are working with the petrol pumps and other facilities maintained by the prisons department.

Meanwhile, the prisons department, which had the experience of maintaining a nursery, entered into an agreement with the oil palm sapling supply company and decided to raise the saplings by the prisoners. As a part of it, 35 prisoners will be allowed to work in the nursery per day, and permission was also sought from the higher officials to allow 15 more prisoners to raise a total of three lakh saplings at this nursery.

Warangal Central Jail Superintendent M Sampath said that the prisoners working at the nursery would be paid Rs 150 per day and the amount would be credited to the accounts of the Prisoner Personal Cash (PPC). He said that DG, Prisons, would launch the nursery raising works on Tuesday.

All arrangements for raising the saplings have been made at the prison site. Meanwhile, Hanamkonda District Horticulture Officer Srinivas Rao said that there would be no scarcity of oil palm saplings in the district with the proposed nursery at the central prison area.