Jail inmates to run book café on The Ridge
SHIMLA:Himachal Pradesh capital Shimla is all set to have its first book café, which will be run by the prisoners. The cafe’, which will come up at the Taka Bench on The Ridge, will have eatables that will be prepared in the prison bakery.
The construction work for the ₹30-lakh project has started and it would be ready by the end of March.The project will start with a few books and the number will be increased gradually. Another feature, which could attract more youngsters, is the availability of online editions.
The book café will have two employees—both prisoners. The Shimla municipal corporation has already completed all the formalities and jail department has also agreed to this proposal. Jail inmates have been working in many fields, ranging from weaving mufflers to making fast food and running a mobile canteen outside Indira Gandhi medical college. The jail department is also promoting such efforts and providing a marketing platform for such products.
Shimla municipal corporation (SMC) commissioner Pankaj Rai said the café will be ready by the end of the current month. “This book café will be run by two employees and both are jail inmates. We have spoken with jail department about it,” Rai said.
The book café will have some online screens where readers can download kindle editions of books of their choice. The café will remain open from 9am to 8 pm.
At present, there are 14 prisons of different categories in the state including two central Jails, two district jails, one open-air jail and eight sub-jails which also include one borstal jail to lodge young offenders. Against the capacity of 1,878, these jails have 2,350 inmates, including 77 women.
A few Kaithu jail inmates run a mobile canteen near Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC), Shimla, while jail inmates in Nahan have been baking cakes and pizza which will be available online.
The National Informatics Centre (NIC) would setup a web portal – Karabazar-to provide an online platform for these items.