By P.Vijian, NNN-Bernama,
Chennai, India : At least 90 percent of inmates who spent time in jails across Tamil Nadu state put on weight due to the healthy south Indian meals served behind bars, the Times of India reported.
Interestingly, none of the prisoners released last year lost weight but instead most of them had expanded waistlines, it said.
Based on the Department of Statistics and Economics data, prisoners had gained at least one kilogramme to three kilogrammes by the time they completed their sentences.
Of the 4,796 prisoners released between 2007 and 2008, 4,231, including 241 women, put on weight, while there was no change in the body weight of the rest of the inmates.
“What the prisoners in TN (Tamil Nadu) get is a balanced diet of the sort that they may not get outside. They are served bedtime tea at 6am, followed by upma or pongal (Indian traditional breakfast made of rice or flour) for breakfast.
“At noon they are served with 650gm of rice with sambhar, butter milk and vegetables, which is followed by boiled peanuts in the evening. Dinner consists of 550gm of rice with sambhar,” V. Kannadasan, special public prosecutor for the Human Rights Court told the newspaper.
On Sundays, prisoners are treated to a special meal comprising 150gm of chicken.
Besides, chappatis, dal and gee are also on prisons’ daily menu.
But human rights activist like P. Pugazhenthi, director of the Prisoners Rights, disagreed, saying that the weight gain was due to lack of physical exercises in the cells, reported the Times.