BHUBANESWAR: Daily wages of the convicts in jails have been marginally hiked with the state government revising the per-day incentive of unskilled prisoners from Rs 40 to Rs 50, semi-skilled ones from Rs 50 to Rs 60 and skilled convicts from Rs 60 to Rs 70.
“The government has been pleased to revise the daily wages of the convicted prisoners for their labour towards the three categories—skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled,” a home department notification said.
The labour charges of convicted prisoners in Odisha is one of the lowest in the country.
Though the state government has taken up several welfare measures and reforms for the inmates, the kind of wages paid to the convicts is peanuts.
According to the national crime records bureau’s (NCRB) data of 2019, Karnataka paid the highest daily wages of Rs 225 to skilled convicts, Rs 200 to semi-skilled prisoners and Rs 175 to the unskilled convicts.
Tamil Nadu stood second with Rs 200, Rs 180 and Rs 160 per-day wage structure for the skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled convicted prisoners in their state.
Manipur paid the lowest labour charges with Rs 12 to skilled, Rs 10 to semi-skilled and Rs 8 to the unskilled convicts.
Odisha’s position stood 20th in terms of the wage structure for the convicts, according to the NCRB report.
On May 25 this year, Odisha government had revised the minimum rate of wages for unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled and highly skilled categories of employees in 89 scheduled employments relating to agriculture, automobile servicing, repairing, garages and workshops among others.
Currently, the minimum per-day wages of unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled and highly skilled labourers are Rs 311, Rs 351, Rs 401 and Rs 461 in the state.
In jails, skilled prisoners are engaged in weaving, tailoring, making of incense sticks, fly ash bricks and phenol.
semi-skilled convicts mostly do cooking, hair-cutting, gardening, dairy and farms, while the unskilled ones do the sweeping and cleaning of the jail premises.