Lucknow: A jail superintendent in Uttar Pradesh has come with a new initiative to make jail inmates give up tobacco which includes smoking 'beedi' or chewing 'gutka'.
The jail superintendent of Kaushambhi district jail, B.S. Mukund, has started offering two extra glasses of milk to jail inmates who give up on tobacco.
Those inmates who have given up tobacco consumption are now getting an extra half litre of milk every day. The Kaushambhi jail has about 642 inmates and nearly 70 per cent of them are addicted to beedi smoking or gutka chewing.
“This is to motivate the inmates to give up smoking and gutka completely. We had to give some incentive and we offered them extra milk. The initiative is already showing results and about a dozen prisoners have already given up 'beedi' and 'gutka', Mr Mukund said.
The prisoners who have opted for half a litre of milk instead of tobacco are Ghanshyam Tiwari, Gajraj Singh, Asrar, Rajesh, Chandan, Shiv Sagar, Ajay Kumar, Anil Kumar and Jitendra.
“We plan to turn the Kaushambhi jail into a tobacco free zone and we are confident of achieving our goal because more and more prisoners are showing an interests in giving up tobacco. More than two dozen prisoners are making a visible effort to give up smoking and gutka", he said.
