The coronavirus pandemic has people all over the world scrambling to stock up on enough essentials to last them months, leaving some people without supplies. People have had to think of ways to find alternatives to solve the shortage of everything, including toilet paper, soap, hand sanitizer, and face masks. Toilet paper shortages alone have been enough of an issue as to render essential sewage infrastructure entirely useless.
As more cases of coronavirus continue to rise, governments are under pressure to supply such items to the public. With manufacturers unable to meet the demand on time, some states in India decided to take action by recruiting the help of prison inmates to get the job done. This initiative has been adopted by other states as well, but it is believed to have originated by the state of Kerala.
On March 15th, the chief minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, announced the initiative in a twitter post which included photos of the piles of finished masks made by the prisoners. “In light of the shortage, directions were given to engage the prisons in the State in manufacturing masks. It has commenced on a war footing basis. Today, the Prison officials of Thiruvananthapuram Jail have handed over the first batch,” he wrote.
Deccan Herald says that the initiative is a collaboration between the in-house Drug Bank (IHDB) of the government SAT Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram and tailoring units attached to prisons in seven districts in Kerala.
As soon as the first cases of COVID-19 hit Kerala, the state experienced a severe scarcity of masks, with most medical shops displaying “out of stock” boards. There were also accusations of some people selling single-use masks for a much higher price.
The chief pharmacist of IHDB, Biju A, claims that the two-layered cotton masks made by prisoners could be used for up to six hours continuously. Additionally, the masks could be washed and reused, which is not only good for the environment, but underprivileged people could benefit from it too.
The initiative was a success; the inmates made thousands of masks. The state then decided to take the initiative even further and turned its attention towards the shortage of hand sanitizer. Last week, Rishi Raj Singh, the Director-General of Prisons, announced that the prisoners have already been instructed to make hand sanitizer. However, they are having difficulties finding spirit-based raw material, which is creating an obstacle in producing sanitizer on a large scale.
Santosh Kumar, the DIG of Prisons, said that the inmates were currently making soap and lotion, although it will mainly be for in-house use. Once complete, the hand sanitizer, soap, lotion, and face masks will be sold for lower prices than those in the markets. According to Kumar, more than 5,000 masks are now being manufactured every day from 25 prisons across Kerala.
The masks are currently supplied to the Kerala Health department and other central and state government institutions, though, given the scarcity of the commodity in the markets, a limited sale to the public is also under consideration.
