Tihar Jail inmates turn fashion designers

It was a fashion show with a difference.
A collection of clothes designed by women inmates of the Tihar Jail were displayed at a fashion show here today as part of Women's Day celebrations.
"The female inmates of the jail are very creative. This is an effort to make the jail inmates stand on their feet, earn their livelihood gracefully and lead a normal life as a citizen of India after coming out of jail," said Captain Jai Narain Prasad, MP and former Union Minister, who was chief guest at the show.
The Tihar Jail has for the past five to six months been running a fashion designing course with about 550 women inmates currently enrolled in the course.

"The costumes have been designed by the inmates. We have been teaching fashion designing to the inmates of Tihar jail for the last five to six months and about 550 female jail inmates are currently being taught this course," said Sunil Kumar, Chief PRO, Tihar Jail.
He said the jail administration was even open to inmates participating as models in the fashion shows from next year.

"The costumes made by the women jail inmates were worn by models this time and hopefully next year the inmates will also participate in the fashion show," said Kumar.
"The message that we want to give through this event is that we can manufacture quality products in the jail which can compete with any branded items in the market," Sunil Kumar told PTI.

Tihar jail which currently employs about 1100 people in a factory built on its premises which boasts of producing goods capable of competing with branded products in the market.
"We have a factory in Tihar jail which employs 1100 people in which various kind of items are made ranging from furniture items to bakery products. Even the soap and detergents made in Tihar jail are very popular.
"The turnover was Rs 15 crore last year and this year it has been around Rs 30 crore and we expect it to be Rs 40 crore next year," said Kumar.
Apart from this, the jail is set to introduce its own solar water plant as well as a biogas plant and become self reliant in energy.

"We are installing a solar water plant and a bio-gas plant so that Tihar jail becomes self dependent in terms of energy consumption," said Kumar.
Efforts are also on to make Tihar a "semi-open" kind of a jail.
"We have started semi-open jail system in Tihar jail whereby jail inmates will leave the jail in the morning and come back in the evening earning minimum wages," Kumar said.