Beggary in India
Once when out for shopping, in the busy and crowded lanes of the Delhi sarojini nagar market I was enjoying the breezy weather along with my friends. We were busy chatting and having fun buying stuffs for us. As we walked on the pavements out of the main market an were on the way to find us a convenience I suddenly felt something grabbing on to my feet from behind that made me scream in fear! And when I saw it was a child beggar who held on to my feet it wrenched my heart to see him in such a poor condition clinging on in a hope to get something to eat. With dirty torn clothes, and eyes full of tears he kept asking me for alms.
Walking on the roads of Delhi one can spot beggars almost everywhere on the pavements at traffic signals, outside the temples and in the busy markets. The tourists are often thronged by beggars what I believe can sometimes be an embarrassment for the country. Broadly saying there are three types of beggars on who are forced to beg due to poor conditions in life, others who are differently abled and the remaining who don’t want to earn inspite of having all functional body parts intact.
Many would think they are helping a beggar by giving them money but this may not be the case as it seems. The money you give might not be getting used up in doing any good to the beggar. Maybe the child spends it up in buying a tobacco packet for him or filling up the pockets of the people who exploit these child beggars by training them to beg to fill up their own trunks. Many of us are aware that many beggars often have more children just for the reason that they will have more hands to earn for the family. Due to the lack of education and awareness theses beggars are never able to come out of their poverty stricken life.
An estimated 7.3 lakh beggars are presently living on the streets of our country. According to unofficial figures, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore have the largest number of beggars but a large proportion of them hail from Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan. In 2011 before the Commonwealth Games the Delhi government took steps to rehabilitate beggars in the city. A number of shelter homes were opened up and steps were taken to send these beggars back to the states they had come from. But once the games were over the scheme seems to have faded away with a large section of beggars still being spotted living on the road sides. Of the six thousand beggars in Delhi, over 1,500 are children. Begging is illegal in Delhi and those convicted are sent to one of the three remand homes in the city where the child beggars are provided with education. But these remand homes have a capacity of only 2400 that makes them incapable of taking off more beggars off the streets.
The real good that can be done is to rehabilitate the beggars and equip them with enough alternatives. They should be provided vocational and technical training so that they can be able to earn for themselves and feed their family. Born as the citizens of India the beggars of the country too have the right to live a life in the mainstream of the society.
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