T.N. prisoners make 36,000 surgical masks every day

Inmates with tailoring skills roped in to meet the demand

04/04/2020, S. VIJAY KUMAR,CHENNAI

Police Department is in need of masks for thousands of its personnel deployed on lockdown duty.

The prison authorities have pooled in the expertise of inmates with tailoring skills to increase the production of surgical face masks to meet the growing demand of the Police Department, which has deployed thousands of its personnel to enforce the COVID-19 prohibitory orders and maintain law and order in the State.

Shutting its tailoring units temporarily, the Prison Department commenced manufacturing of face masks. The inmates of Puzhal, Tiruchi and Coimbatore central prisons rolled out 3,000 face masks a day. With the police asking for more, Director General of Police Sunil Kumar Singh asked the inmates in three more central prisons to join the work and increased the productivity to 36,000 face masks per day.

“We are making proper surgical masks at a cost of ₹ 10 per piece. We have so far supplied 2.16 lakh pieces. Since there is an acute shortage of face masks in the open market, private hospitals and establishments are approaching us. We declined an order to make 1 lakh masks recently because our focus is on to meet the requirements of the police force,” Mr. Singh said.

Hand sanitisers

The prisoners are making hand sanitisers, but only for in-house consumption. The 135 prisons located across Tamil Nadu have a capacity of 23,392 inmates. The occupancy was brought down to 51% from 62% a week ago with hundreds held for petty offences released on bail. Since there was no public transport due to the lockdown, suspects released on bail were being dropped home in police vehicles.

The Prison Department banned family interviews for prisoners as part of measures to contain the spread of coronavirus.

However, it has procured smart phones to facilitate prisoners make video calls to their family. Convicts can make calls twice a week and undertrials, thrice.