200 inmates may work outside Tihar during day

New Delhi: Around 200 Tihar jail inmates have been shortlisted to work outside the prison campus during day time, said an official Thursday. The facility, also known as semi-open jail, would allow convicts to develop job skills. "A proposal was sent to the government for allowing inmates to work outside the jail during the day so that they could easily get jobs after serving their sentence," a jail official, who did not want to be named, told IANS.

The concept of semi-open jail was adopted a year ago but due to stringent provisions only two inmates availed it. Now the conditions have been relaxed and prisoners who have served a sentence of 5-12 years may benefit from it, the official said. Tihar has 17,000 inmates out of whom 200 convicts would be eligible to avail the facility, the official said. The inmates would be encouraged to work at sites of public works department and in other technical fields. They would be paid for the work, he said. IANS