Hair removal cream, salad: MP's New Year gift for jail inmates

BHOPAL: Women prisoners in Madhya Pradesh will, for the first time, get hair removal cream once a month and shampoo once a week from New Year's Day, reports.

The aim is to help women prisoners maintain personal hygiene, say officials. Also, all prisoners will now get a salad with their meal, and there will be a small increase in their daily quota of tea, milk, oil and dal. These are among the new provisions in MP Correctional Services and Prisons Act 2024 that will come into force from Jan 1, 2025. Previously scheduled to come into effect on Oct 2, Gandhi Jayanti, it got delayed as certain mandatory things had been left out, said sources.

Besides, Apart from health and hygiene, the focus is on tech upgrade and finding solutions to avoid overcrowding in jails. According to govt data, there are 43,000 prisoners in MP jails against a capacity of 36,000. One of the priority areas in the new laws is to "understand and change the psychology of a criminal" and to train staff accordingly.