A view of the Yerwada central jail in Pune.
| Photo Credit: Today News 24 Archives
There wasn’t a day that passed by when Usha Kokade did not worry about her teenage daughter’s safety, when she would go out to use the public toilet in Pune’s Dhule basti.
The 47-year-old house help started living with her sister and brother-in-law after her husband got arrested on charges of murder in October 2015. However she wanted to move out of there and live in her own house. She got the much needed impetus to do so from an initiative by the Uddhav Thackeray led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in May last year. Jivhala, is a credit scheme that offers a loan of ₹50,000 to a felon at Yerwada Central jail in Pune after being sentenced to life imprisonment.
With this money, Ms. Kokade was able to build a small kaccha house with an attached toilet/bathroom inside. “I have used public toilets for the better part of my life and I know the difficulties one faces with it. I didn’t want my girl to experience any untoward experience now that she is growing up,” said a former call centre employee.
Sanjay, Usha’s husband applied for the loan offered by the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank with 7% interest rate and 1% of the interest earned by the bank will be contributed to the Prisoner Welfare Fund. This one of a kind mortgage that requires no guarantor or collateral.
Datta Pansare has been under tremendous financial pressure because he is the only bread winner of a family of four. He is a peon at a small private company in Amravati. Eight years back when his brother, Navrath, now 31, was arrested on charges of murder, he had to bear an additional expense of paying his younger brother’s lawyers fees.
“Both my parents are senior citizens so there is some or the other health issue that they face adding to the monthly expense. With this loan, I have one less thing to be worried about,” he said.
Maharashtra Prison Department spokesperson, Shahu Darade explaining the benefits of the loan said, “Most of the convicts who are serving life imprisonment are the sole bread earners of the family, when such prisoners have to stay in prison for a long time, their entire family faces a lot of problems such as depression, sense of guilt, loss of sensitivity and the feeling that the person who went to prison has failed in family duty. In such a situation, the inmate can apply for this loan to support his family from jail.”
The scheme that started on Maharashtra day, May 1 has benefited 18 prisoners who sought for a loan for children’s education, to pay health related bills and lawyers’ fees. Once the convict expresses his desire to apply for the scheme with the jail authorities, the Superintendent then does all the paperwork and makes an application on his behalf at the bank.
The bank officials then visit the family to verify the details and the money is transferred into the bank account of the inmate. He repays the amount by what he earns inside the prison. Yerwada is famous for production units and services such as powerloom, handloom, tailoring, lather work, paper factory, laundry and bakery products.
