Books on Wheels initiative; prison inmates in Tihars jail are busy reading a wide variety of books

The Bhagavad Gita, the Quran, and novels by well-known authors Chetan Bhagat and Devdutt Pattanaik are just a few of the literature that inmates in Tihar's cell number four, which is specifically for first-time offenders, are currently reading in their pass time.

Their routine has changed as a consequence of a prison management effort that began "Books on Wheels" within the institution in December last year. As part of this, one of the prisoners pushes a cart full of books around the facility each day, and other prisoners can take whichever books they like.

The idea is now only available to prison number 4, but officials say they plan to soon expand it to other jails.

After noticing that few inmates were making the effort to visit the prison's current central library to borrow or return books, the jail management came up with the concept.

The most frequently read book by detainees, according to Jail No. 4's statistics, is Pattanaik's Pashu, which has been distributed at least a dozen times, sometimes to the same prisoner. Bhagat, Mohan Pathak, and Reema Bharti's books were also discovered to be among the most widely read, with each of them being borrowed in the same week from at least six to seven different prisoners.

The "Books on Wheels" program now has 3,575 books available, and as of this writing, 800 of the 3,500 convicts housed in Jail No. 4 get books each week from it. A prison officer said, "Orders are given to bookstores and NGOs, and the necessary amount is procured if a particular book is in demand and is quickly running out of stock."

According to the current set-up, each jail has its own library with a special room filled with a variety of books from all genres, including English literature, philosophical and mythological works, non-fiction books, and autobiographies. We also have the Vedas. English-language fiction books and autobiographies are frequently published by educated prisoners or those charged with white-collar crimes. According to library data compiled over the years, the majority of inmates—both those awaiting trial and those already convicted—read religious or mythical materials while they are incarcerated.

According to officials, the majority of the books in the library are gifts from convicts' families, NGOs, or the jail administration. As it offers a more convenient and flexible way to access books from the barrack itself and further restricts inmates' movement, preventing the smuggling and passing of illegal items inside jail, the initiative will gradually be expanded to all jails in Tihar, Mandoli, and Rohini, according to a jail official.

The prisons' libraries are open to inmates twice a day from 8 am to 12 pm and 3 pm to 5 pm.

According to Sunil Gupta, a former Tihar police officer, prisoners typically turn to religious and philosophical publications for solace.