481 prisoners meet family, relatives as Tamil Nadu prison department resumes visits after Pongal

Visitors to state prisons were banned in third week of March 2020 immediately after the pandemic set in.

Last week, the prison department had announced that the visitors would be allowed to see prisoners from Pongal day onwards.

Visitors are allowed to meet the prisoners for 15 minutes and they are expected to reach the jail 30 minutes before the scheduled time of meeting. They are also expected to register their schedule through e-prison management system or via designated telephone for each prison. 

Visitors are now being allowed from 9 am to 2 pm every working days except Saturday, Sunday and government holidays.

Each prisoner can have only one visitor at a time. On Thursday, visitors across the prisons were mostly women who had come to meet their husbands and sons lodged in the jails.