Expert cooks can apply for jobs in Jharkhand jails. Following the principle of ‘the way to prisoners’ hearts is through their stomachs’, home minister Sudesh Mahto is on the look out for master cooks to regularly rustle up non-vegetarian dishes for jail inmates across the state.
“I want master cooks who can prepare better and delicious food in state jails. If you provide the prisoners with good food, they would not cause trouble,” Mahto has apparently told prison officials. With this, the current practice of deputing prisoners with manageable culinary skills is likely to end.
Improving the food culture in jails will cost the department an additional Rs 2.21 lakh daily. But that seems to have little effect on Mahto’s move to change the tradition of serving non-vegetarian items only during winter months from the next fiscal. The department provides mutton, egg and chicken to prisoners only from November to February. The practice — prevalent since pre-Independence days — has been based on the British belief that non-vegetarian food should be served sparingly in a warm country like India, prison officials told HT.
The food culture in 17 districts and seven divisional jails is set to change after the decisions taken on Friday at a meeting of prison officials convened by the minister to speed up the ongoing reform process.
{{/usCountry}}The food culture in 17 districts and seven divisional jails is set to change after the decisions taken on Friday at a meeting of prison officials convened by the minister to speed up the ongoing reform process.
{{/usCountry}}Food is not the only thing in Mahto’s master plan of prison reforms. Prisoners will also be supplied with books to read. The minister has ordered officials to institute libraries in prisons.
Going by these proposals, if you think Mahto is soft on prisoners, then probably you are wrong. He has asked the authorities to focus on prison security and go for solar fencing to pre-empt attempts at jailbreak. The covering wires will be charged after 6 p.m. while additional high mast lights will be installed in the prisons. He has ordered exemplary punishment against those violating prison rules.