Yerawada jail inmates’ footwear business goes global

Around 100 inmates from Yerawada Central Jail in Pune are now a part of the international business community.

Around 100 inmates from Yerawada Central Jail in Pune are now a part of the international business community.

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In the past 15 months, more than 30,000 pairs of footwear, manufactured by the inmates, were exported to the United State of America (USA) and many European countries, helping them achieve a turnover of ₹2 crore in the financial year 2018-19.

Working under the brand name ‘Inmate’, the inmates, mostly convicts, are now hoping that their revenue for the financial year 2019-2020 touches ₹8 crore, said Divej Mehta, the director of Tergus Works Private Limited, the firm that exports the footwear.

Yogesh Desai, deputy inspector of general (DIG), Pune, said that the demand for products manufactured by jail inmates has witnessed a surge in recent months, and the inmates have been working round-the-clock to meet the demands. From the traditional Kolhapuri chappals to sandals, the inmates design and manufacture different types of footwear.

“The prison department aims to rehabilitate the inmates. With time, the trends change and we trying to imbibe modern culture. Citizens have a perception that inmates break huge stones for their daily earnings, but that is an old practise now. The footwear market is a blooming industry. The inmates design the footwear as the firm only provides them with raw materials, machineries and looks after the export,” said Desai, adding that the unit where the inmates work was earlier used for stitching clothes and making leather shoes for prison department officers and Rajasthan Police.

However, as the demand was too low, authorities decided to close it and start a unit entirely dedicated to footwear.

According to UT Pawar, superintendent of police, Yerawada Central Jail, the inmates will also be handed over experience certificates.

“Most of the inmates working in the unit are convicts who have at least more than five years to complete their sentence. They first undergo a training and after starting work in the unit, are paid daily wages as per the jail manual. Inmates will be given a certificate of experience so that once they are released, it will help them get employed,” said Pawar.

While the proposal to start the unit was accepted by the prison department in 2013, Inmate as a brand was launched on April 1, 2018, by Mehta.

While pursuing his MBA degree in Singapore, Mehta, whose family is running a business for the past five decades, decided to work with jail inmates to rehabilitate them.

“In the past three years, we have empowered more than 250 inmates at Yerawada as well as in Puzhal Central Prison, Chennai,” said Mehta.