35-year-old Munusamy looks casual and unkempt, but his eyes shine with a rare energy as he recites in front of an appreciative audience, “Maravetti, Mummariyai thadukkum mullu­maari (a tree-cutter is a rogue who stops the rains!)…ithu ennudaiya haiku (this is my haiku)” and finishes with a flourish. We are in the Madurai Central Prison – built in 1865 on an area of 31 acres and authorised to accommodate 1252 prisoners – in the midst of the inauguration of a new greening initiative that has ­recently begun across all the prisons in Tamil Nadu!

A view of prison grounds... then and now.

The Green Prisons Project was originally initiated in November 2009, when Chennai-based NGO Nizhal was requested by the then IG, Prisons,
R. Nataraj, to help green the new Puzhal prison’s 120 acre campus. Besides sensitive greening and beautification of the campus and effective waste management, horticulture training was introduced to provide an alternative livelihood model for participants. It involved cultivation of organic vegetables and fruits. The initial response was not very encouraging, but there has been a gradual change in the minds of participants and prison officials in charge!

As Dr. T.D. Babu, a marine biologist who helps coordinate the programme, recalls, “During a visit midway into the initiative, the green pastures and the avenue trees seemed to welcome us. Before we reached the activity site at Block 3, many of our programme participants gathered at the gate to welcome us with pride writ large on their faces. It was because their harvest had crossed 1000 kg of brinjal, french beans, ladies’ fingers (put together). The jail campus itself – other inmates, jailors and police staff who tasted the vegetables – reverberated with praise for these green warriors!” By the middle of 2010, they had harvested over 1500 kg of organic vegetables – thakkali, vendai, kathirikka, kothavarai, etc. – in five months.

Early this year, Nizhal, at the request of the then IG, Prisons, J.K. Tripathy, initiated the programme across all the prisons in the State!

In Cuddalore, Pudukkottai, Palayamkottai, Salem, Madurai, Coimbatore and Vellore , the programme connects organic experts in each district with the respective prison and they follow up periodically on leaf litter/waste management, vegetable gardening, panchakavyam, compost preparation and so on.