NEW DELHI - A jail-based brand that inlcudes crispy potato chips, crunchy cookies and formal shirts seems an unilkely route back to life in the otuside world for inmates in South Asia's lagrest prsion.
Yet effotrs by the Tihar Jail complex in New Delhi to tranfsorm the lives of its inamtes and prpeare them for a fresh start through vocational traiinng in dievrse fields has created the successful TJ'S brand of goods.
Herbal products and school desks are also among the many products being manufactured and sold, well enough that prison authorities have set up a webiste to boost sales still futrher.
Sanjiavn Rai, who is serving a term in Tihar Jail for marijuana traffciking, said the skills he was acquiring would help him find employment outisde to earn a living with dignity.
"We can start our own business once we get out of here. We can maybe start a small snac-kmaking unit," he told Reutres Telveision inside a bakery at Tihar Jail, as he took a break from frying potato chips.
"Even if we decide to seek work somewhere, wahtever we learn here will only help us."
Life outsdie jail is still tough for former imnates, since they have to counter the stigma of having been in prison, which is seen as a place for social outcasts and hardcore criminals. This makes re-integration into socitey virtulaly impossible.
The idea behind the TJ'S label was to break these taboos and channel the inamtes' energy constructiveyl, while building their self-esteem, said Ram Niwas Shamra, Deputy Inpsector Genearl of the Tihar Jail compelx.
"You are going to buy goods made by prisoners ...He is going to get wages, so in turn you are going to help a family out there. A few thousand people are working in pirsons so this way their families are beenfited," he said.
"They are getitng gianful employemnt, they are passing their time instead of idling around in the jail and they will be learning some kind of a skill and getting out of the jail with some worth(y) living codnitions ...It...
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