Coimbatore : As many as 23 prisoners in the Central Jail will man the fuel retail outlet located at the outer premises of the Jail here.

Set up at 22 cent space at Gandhipuram, the first sale was marked by Coimbatore Range DIG Prisons, Arivudainabi and Jail Supreintendent Krishnaraj in the presence of senior officials of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC).

The prisoners, with uniorm, will work for three shifts and the IOC will provide salary (Rs.100 per day) to them, official sources said..

The outlet inaugurated by Tamil Nadu chief ministeer, Edapadi Palanisamy through video conferencing along with four other bunks across the State, was part of the effort to socially integrate and provide respectable transition from prison to societal life for prisoners, they said.

With six pumping machines and ATM facility, the bunk will also sell the products like bed sheet, khakhi clothes and food articles, produced by the prisoners as in Prizon Bazaar, they said.

Plans are afoot to start such a bunk on a place belonged to prisons department on Bharathiyar Road in the city, they said.

State-of-the-art facilities and mandatory facilities at each fuel retail outlet like adequate storage for petrol, diesel and space for storing lubricants, modern electronic dispensing units, compound wall, canopy, paver drive way, visual identity, sales building, separate toilets for male and female, air facility, drinking water facility, CCTV, customer centric facilities like loyalty cards, digital payment facilities, safety equipment will be provided by IOC at the outlet,.

On the effort, IOC said that prison inmates are given a chance to become skilled workers and are able to merge with the society seamlessly when their sentence gets over. They were able to come out of prison environs and contribute to revenue generation for prison department, they said.

They learn aspects of safety in handling inflammable products, learn modern technology –to handle dispensing unit nozzles, cash management, handling customers, IOC said.