Thane: It was a happy new year for the Thane Central Jail authorities and the inmates as they managed to sell cakes worth Rs 11 lakh during the Christmas season. The jail has its own in-house bakery unit where inmates are trained to bake cakes for self-consumption and for sale.
Each year before the Christmas season, the jail receives a large number of orders for “yummy cakes” from several government and non-government institutions.
20-year-old bakery unit at Thane jail
“Our bakery unit is functional throughout the year, and it goes back at least 20 years. However, the idea of taking up 'special' orders for Christmas started in 2019. We take up orders before Dec 17, and then between Dec17-24, the process of making preparations and baking the cakes begins,” explains Harshad Ahirrao, Superintendent of Police, Thane Central Jail.
There are some 17-20 inmates who are involved in the baking process, says Mr Ahirrao. “All of them are trained under a special instructor and now they are skilled bakers,” he said. Mr Ahirrao specifically mentioned that all the bakery goodies are tested by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before being sold for consumption. The range of cakes – including sponge cakes, cupcakes etc – were sent to several jails including Taloja Jail, Byculla women and men's jail, Kalyan’s Adharwadi Jail and Arthur Road Jail. They were also sent to the Thane Mental Hospital, Mantralaya and several civic hospitals across Mumbai, Thane, and Kalyan. Additionally, this year, cakes were sent to churches as well.
According to Mr Ahirrao, all the inmates who usually work for 8 hours a day (on a regular day), worked for 14 hours during the seven days of cake-making / baking. They were paid Rs140 per day.
Last year, the jail earned a total of Rs5 lakh, which surged to Rs11 lakh this year, through the sale of over 40,000 cupcakes and 2,000kg of sponge cakes. Meanwhile, during the lockdown period, sales plummeted as jail authorities could not sell the goodies outside. As a result, all the items were consumed by theinmates themselves. Prior to the lockdown, the bakery unit earned up to Rs4 lakh in 2019.
“There has been a constant rise in revenue and we are getting good responses from our customers. We are now planning on getting a new and bigger ovenfor the bakery unit and even planning on collaborating with non-government organisations to increase our reach. Along with cakes, we will consider supplying other baked snack items for Diwali and other festive occasions as well,” Mr Ahirrao concluded.
