Madurai: New mutton stall in central prison turns hit in a month

MADURAI: Less than a month since a mutton stall was launched at the Madurai central prison involving the inmates, the outlet seems to be drawing an impressive number of customers, selling more than 70 kg of meat in three hours on Sunday morning. The busy morning hours saw seven goats slaughtered and their meat sold to a long line of mutton lovers.
Reared in the Open Air Jail at Kalayarkovil in Sivaganga district, the goats will be sold to the central prison after obtaining clearance from government veterinarians. While the stall has functioned in the past couple of Sundays, it became fully-fledged stall only this Sunday.
Around 15 inmates from the prison are involved in various process involving like skinning, chopping meat, seasoning of head and limbs using fire and sales. “The overwhelming support of customers is down to the fact that many hardly get to buy pure goat meat. Most stalls sell sheep meat, under the guise a mutton,” officials said.
Compared to muttons stalls in the city, where a kg of boneless meat is sold at up to Rs 820, the prison bazaar sells meat only at Rs 700. A pair of limbs used for preparing soup are sold for Rs 100 and head for Rs 200. Despite a competitive price, the inmates make a decent money with 20% of the profit going to them.
“The meat became popular by word of mouth. Many who bought meat her suggest the shop to others. We sold a good quantity of meat without making any publicity to the stall,” said the official.
Prison authorities have been introducing various manufacturing and trade activities to empower inmates under the prison bazaar scheme. They can learn new skills, which can be used to support their family members, once they walk out of the prison. Mutton stall is one of them. Recently, they began manufacturing nursery pots and are selling them directly on the cheap.
In all, 105 inmates are involved in various farming and farm related activities in the Open Air Jail spread over a 84 acres of land. Raising cattle and poultry are some of them, officials said.