Vadodara: There is Grameen Bank and Mahila Bank, each catering to a niche geographical area or segment of the society. In a year or so, Gujarat will see a unique addition — prison bank — to the list of this select financial institutions. Inmates of four central jails in the state will be able to seamlessly transact with their family members through the prison bank.
The initiative will replace the age-old money order system that the inmates and their family members use to send or receive money. Prisoners earn by working in different jail industries and send a large amount of money to their families. In some cases inmates receive money from their families which they use to purchase soaps, oil and other articles from jail canteen.
“Jail industries have an annual turnover of Rs 11 crore. Inmates earn anywhere between Rs 4,000 to Rs 15,000 every month. We want to capture those transactions through a mechanism like that of a bank so that inmates and their families can easily send or receive money,” said Dr KLN Rao, additional DGP (prisons). He added that the inmates’ families will be given an instrument like a debit card to withdraw the money sent by the prisoner.
The prison bank facility will be started in four central jails of the state — in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot. The four central jails account for 80% of the 16,000 prisoners in the state.