DG (Delhi Prisons) Sandeep Goel told The Indian Express that this is the first time that inmates of Tihar jail will be trained in sports with the help of professional coaches and IOCL will also provide all the sports material to them.

“All these professional coaches are reputed players of their times at national and international level. The IOCL will send them to Tihar jail twice a week to give training in each of these selected games. They will train 80 selected inmates from jail no – 2, 4, 5, for three months and the trained inmates will then give coaching to other inmates,” he said, adding that such types of activities will help create a positive and healthy atmosphere inside the prison.

On October 2, Goel along with Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, Chairman IOCL inaugurated the project in the presence of jail staff in central jail no 5 of Tihar jail.

Vaidya, while addressing the jail inmates and jail officials, informed that IOCL has recently launched “Parivartan – Prison to Pride”, an initiative aimed at promoting sports in prisons, as a part of ‘Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav, and they have covered 24 jails across the country. He also said that IOCL will be happy to start some skill development programmes in jails in the interest of prisoners.

Goel said, “The inmates will take this opportunity to channelize their energy in the right direction and to correct their mistakes. Parivartan is an initiative to socially re-integrate inmates through sports. Motivating them to engage in sports will aid in reducing chances of their relapse to unlawful activities. The objective of the program is to mould any negative mindset of the inmates towards positive direction to achieve the bigger goal of personality development and nation-building.”