LAHORE:Punjab Home Secretary Noor-ul-Ameen Mengal inaugurated the Smart Library Project at District Jail Lahore on Thursday, marking the formal launch of an education-focused initiative across Punjab’s prison system.
Undertaken on the special directives of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, the project aims to foster learning, rehabilitation, and character-building among inmates. Under this project, inmates across Punjab’s prisons will now have access to curated books and shelves inside their barracks, fostering a culture of learning and personal development.
Speaking at the inaugural ceremony at Camp Jail Lahore, Secretary Noor-ul-Ameen Mengal emphasised the department’s commitment to inmate rehabilitation through education.
He said that Smart Libraries have been established in all 44 prisons across the province, with a remarkable collection of 100,000 books already delivered. Furthermore, each prison has been tasked with adding 500 new titles every month, ensuring a continuously expanding literary environment for inmates.
Under this framework, educated inmates will be responsible for presenting book summaries to groups of ten fellow prisoners, promoting peer-to-peer learning.
All literate inmates are expected to read at least one book during their incarceration, fostering a habit of intellectual growth.To encourage active participation, the top reader in each prison will be rewarded on a monthly basis. Additionally, book collections will be rotated between barracks every month to ensure variety and wider access.
Each barrack in-charge will oversee the upkeep of books and ensure adherence to library guidelines.
The libraries house books on ethics, history, literature, character-building, Islamic teachings, and moral development, aiming to shape prisoners into responsible and educated citizens.The launch event was attended by Additional Secretary (Prisons) Asim Raza, IG Prisons Mian Farooq Nazeer, DIG Lahore Region Prisons Naveed Rauf, Jail Superintendent Zaheer Ahmed Warraich, and other senior officials.