The social insurance scheme for prison inmates proposed by the Ministry of Rehabilitation and Prisons Reforms for those who receiving long term prison sentences will come into force from next month.

A spokesperson for the Ministry said that officers from the National Insurance Trust (NIT) had visited the prisons to gather information on selected inmates and now it is in its final stages.

The insurance scheme will be based on the crime that the particular inmate had committed. “He has to be suitable to be given insurance. We will also take their discipline into account as well,” he said. 

The Ministry earlier planned to implement the proposals on September 12 to mark Prisoners Day but it was postponed. The Ministry said that it was delayed to look into more proposals to make the scheme stronger and then to be implemented in a way that it would not be revised in the future.

The Ministry together with the National Insurance Trust (NIT) is jointly collaborating to implement these proposals. We have a prison account that we have created by depositing wages and other incomes that are being generated by the inmates for the work they do. We have about Rs.5 million in the account at the moment,” he said.

The scheme intends to compensate the family of the prisoner if she or he is injured or undergoes any other harm while in prison. Or else the full insurance amount will be handed over to the prisoner along with the daily wages they have earned when they are leaving the prison after completing the jail term.

“The Ministry is especially focusing on how inmates can be given a new life when they return to society after concluding their respective prison terms,” he noted.

The Ministry has initiated many programmes to uplift the facilities and to educate them that society will take them back if they returned with good qualities and were aware of the mistakes they made in life which made them serve terms in prisons. (Supun Dias)