Former CM lalu Prasad, sentenced for five-year jail with rigorous imprisonment in a fodder scam case by a special designated CBI court in Ranchi, is to take care of the Birsa Munda prison garden.
According to sources, lalu as per the notification issued a few days back by the jail authorities has been entrusted with the job of gardening in the jail premises.
“lalu along with the two other politicians RK Rana and Jagdish Sharma have been asked to take of the garden in the jail,” said a jail official requesting anonymity. Rana however, has been granted bail by the High Court.
Earlier, there was a high speculation that lalu, an astute politician, will be assigned to teach political science to the jail inmates or involved in the literacy campaign in the prison. “But the job would have subjected the former Chief Minister to security threat as he had to mingle with a large number of inmates every day,” said a source.
According to his profile in the lok Sabha website, the former Bihar chief minister is a BA, llB and is currently lodged as an upper division convict in the jail. The Jharkhand High Court has rejected his bail petition.
According to jail sources, lalu had been looking after the garden at his Patna residence which is also his area of interest. The decision was taken keeping all the aspects in consideration.
“Gardening will be a safe job for him from security point of view as it includes very less people as compared to the teaching job which includes several other people,” said the ex-jail superintendent Virendra Kumar, who was replaced by DK Pradhan a couple of days back.
A formal notice regarding distribution of jobs to jail inmates was issued by the office of Jail Superintendent a few days back. lalu having a keen interest in gardening is quite comfortable with his new responsibility and has been carrying out this job for the last few weeks, said a source inside the jail.
The four IAS officers (retired) — Phulchand Singh, Mahesh Prasad, Beck Julius and K Arumugham have also been convicted in the case have been assigned the job to teach the other jail inmates during their stay in the prison. Arumugham, however, was granted bail on the day of conviction by the CBI court.
Prisoners undergoing sentences, as per the rules, are allotted work according to their ability, background and requirements of the jail subject to the approval of the jail doctors. The purpose primarily is to reform and rehabilitate the prisoner for outside world.
As per section 53 of the IPC, RI means doing hard labour work while they serve during their stay in the Jail, whereas in simple imprisonment no hard labour is required to be done by a prisoner.
According to the jail manual, convicts who are undergoing Rigorous Imprisonment (RI) are categorized under three head — skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled jobs and are paid remuneration of Rs 151, Rs 122 and Rs 103 respectively.
Other jobs which are assigned to the jail inmates are categorised as bamboo and cane work, brick making, carpentry, chopping firewood, gardening, grain harvesting and husking for jail use, hair cutting, housekeeping, masonary and building work of jail premises, repairing jail road, weaving power loom and black smith shop among others.
Presently, there are around 3,000 inmates at the Birsa Munda Central Jail, both convicted and under trials. Besides a blanket making industry, a centers for National Open School and IGNOU is also run inside the jail premises where around 350 inmates are preparing for various examinations.