Shrunkhala- A food joint where Yerawada Jail inmates welcome us

Since I read about the inauguration of the joint in the newspapers, I became extremely curious and wanted to visit it. Soon came the opportunity. Located on the Yerawada jail premises, with sufficient parking space is a place one must visit.


When talked to the inmates working in the SHRUNKHALA, they all stated that this is the brainchild of Swati Tai Satthe, Deputy Inspector General, (DIG) prison. Fortunately, soon I got an opportunity to meet Swati Tai Sathe with the Ex-corporator Madhuri Tai Sahastrabuddhe (She is an MSW, who has run a Bal Ranjan Kendra in the Sahawas society, Erandawane, for more than four decades. It works for children, It is a Sanskar Kendra that covers many aspects of the all-around development of children. She was elected twice as a corporation from the same area, was the chairman of the Mahila and Balkalyan committees, and undertook many projects for them. She always undertakes many environment and vacation projects for children and their parents.)

Swati Tai Satthe has been working relentlessly to find various avenues for the Psychosocial Rehabilitation of inmates whom she used the word 'chance offenders' for. Unlike the Bollywood image of a prison official , she is very composed and has total clarity of thought about her project SHRUNKHALA which she expects to be run by all the prisons all over Maharashtra.

While talking about the 'Shrunkhala', she said, "Every day I would see people eating from the joints or the wada pav carts on this road. This made me think of providing a quality option to the people around, there hardly is any good alternative." She thought that the space and inmates willing to work, were available with her, why should she not think of opening one joint? It would provide an opportunity for the inmates to learn a lot of skills as a variety of skilled personnel are required to run one joint.

"This," she said, " is the first experiment of its kind in Maharashtra ." Obviously, she expects that such a project could be replicated in all the districts which have jails.

The textile unit which has handlooms and powerloom activities is already being run in Yerawada jail, it has a showroom on the main road and is well known.

Talking about the selection criteria for SHRUNKHALA, she stated that all the prisoners selected are from the Open Jail, and they would perform a variety of roles needed. There are 60 jails in Maharashtra and there are 16 open jails for males and 1 for women.

With changing times, a more reformative theory is based on the premise that a more humane approach has to be adopted. Open Prisons are those prisons where there are less strict rules as compared to controlled or closed jails. Open prisons are minimum security prisons, open-air camps, or prisons without bars. Prison inmates are given the opportunity to be in Open Jail as a reward for good behavior and they are provided an opportunity to learn some skills which would be useful in making them self-dependent.

The inmates selected for the project were given proper training that helped them to learn to interact with the people and acquire other skills needed, so they would be able to run a small unit of food joint in the future wherever they live.

Inmates with serious crimes are not selected to work at SHRUNKHALA. The selected inmates are chance offenders, they certainly need to have a second chance in life and be properly assimilated into society. The inmates who were interested and could fit into the selection norms were chosen .


"Quality ingredients are used which would not harm the health, without it, there won't be repeat customers," Swati Tai said. "There are suggestions to make the home delivery services available.", She added.

In the morning many were enjoying a fresh and tasty cup of tea along with breakfast, when visited in the afternoon a couple of days later, couldn't find a place as every table was occupied. Many were enjoying the lunch and of course the Pune special wada pav, pakaude, and probably misal too.

She talked about the experiments that have been successful and are working in Kolhapur to this date. A foundry is established in Kolhapur. She pointed out, "The percentage of rejection usually is 1 to 1.5 in the foundries, but the foundry run by Kolhapur jail inmates, works with no rejection. Inmates work to this precision with total dedication."
The second example she put forth was of female prisoners who cooked PRASAD for the Mahalaxmi temple.

"Initially there was a strong opposition, but in jail, the authorities requested the temple administration to visit the kitchen where 'PRASAD' is cooked. They visited the kitchen and confirmed how hygienic the conditions are, how women prisoners work in a totally clean kitchen, their personal hygiene is taken care of. The hesitation disappeared and the female inmates earned the honor of cooking PRASAD, now the PRASAD we all get in the MAHALAXMI temple is prepared by our female inmates," she expressed with satisfaction and a smile.

She seems to have some thought of more projects like this for the rehabilitation of prison inmates to implement. May be SHRUNKHALA will be replicated in many jails in the near future.

We visited SHRUNKHALA, and had Pune's special 'Batata wada, Pakaude, and Tea'. Most of the vegetables and milk come from the open jail. The person at the counter could remember that I visited with my husband a couple of days ago and took the order with a welcome smile and professional attire.

The service person who served us food talked to us and shared that the money he would earn would help him support his family, so his children can continue their education.

In my opinion, such initiatives give inmates (who are chance offenders) hope to lead a life with self-esteem and be self-reliant.

Modern society always works on rehabilitation projects by making skills training of various types available to jail inmates, so that they can contribute to society in a constructive way and earn livelihoods. We as a society too need to give an opportunity to the chance offenders as Swati Tai expects.