Urban News

The Deccan Chronicle  02.11.2010

Nov. 1: According to a field survey conducted by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, 4,463 people, including children, sleep on the footpaths of the Greater Hyderabad area at night. This figure does not include those who sleep in carts and rickshaws or under flimsy plastic sheets.

The GHMC conducted this first ever field survey to identify the homeless in the city following an undertaking given to the Supreme Court that it will set up night shelters for all the homeless people in the city.

The first night shelter is to be put up before Diwali. However, a major problem is where these shelters should be built. Ms Bilkiz Fathima of the Andhra Pradesh Mahila Welfare Society that runs a home-cum-school for street children in the old city, said, “The people who sleep on footpaths will not come to the night shelters if they are set up at some place far away from where they are working. For example, several of the homeless identified in the survey work as hamals and sweepers in shops at Begum Bazar and then sleep on footpaths at night.”

She says resistance from local residents to have shelters for the homeless in their midst may force the GHMC to set up these shelters in remote areas outside the city, but if this happens, the homeless workers from Begum Bazar, for instance, will not come. “The project will end up as a failure. The night shelters should be easily accessible as most of the homeless work during the day,” she said.

Experts and NGOs who have been working on the issue agree that first awareness must be created among local residents of their social responsibility to allow the homeless to be accommodated in ‘homes’ being set up in the midst of residential and commercial areas.

Ms K. Anuradha of Aman Vedika, an NGO that is associated with the Supreme Court to oversee the implementation of the night shelters project, said that the resistance from local residents is due to the fear that there could be some anti-social elements among the homeless.

“Citizens directly express fears about their safety and security and the impact of street children’s behaviour on their own children. Immediate success cannot be expected in projects of this kind and it should be a continuous exercise and not stopped mid-way as was the case with GHMC’s beggar rehabilitation project.”

Ms Fathima, who participated in the survey along with the GHMC, emphasises the need to constantly upgrade the figures. “This was only phase-I of the survey. It should be done periodically as the population of migrants to the city is on the rise.”

Social worker, Ms Indira, pointed out that unless proper facilities are provided in the night shelters, such as decent and free sanitation facilities, the project will not find many takers.

People presently sleeping on footpaths spend close to `20 per day on toilet and bathroom facilities, she said, and added that food, clothing, medication, counselling and education of children, imparting self-employment skills and training can be taken up in phase-II of the project.

The National Policy on Housing and Habitat, 1998, aims to provide the basic need of shelter for all, and until this objective is achieved, it is necessary to provide some kind of shelter to the absolutely shelterless urban poor, particularly street children, destitute women and migrant labourers.

However, the civic body has failed to set up even a single night shelter in the last 12 years. Other cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata have done much better. Ms G. D. Priyadarshini, Additional Commissioner, Urban Community Development, GHMC, said the first of the night shelters would be set up in the city before the Diwali festival. “Though we need about 25 night shelters to accommodate nearly 4,500 men, women and children, we will set up 10 night shelters in the first phase,” she said.

“Though we searched for private rented buildings to set up night shelters, it has now been decided to accommodate the shelterless in GHMC community halls and vacant government buildings. We are also seeking police help to identify any men, women or children with a criminal background and how to take up their rehabilitation,” she said.

Corporate houses like Infosys, Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, Grand Kakatiya Hotel and Towers, Taj Krishna, as well as NGOs and individuals have started donating bed-sheets, beds etc and have pledged to provide facilities in night shelters, the GHMC additional commissioner said.

Reminded that the GHMC’s beggar rehabilitation project, on similar lines, had flopped, the GHMC officer said efforts to rehabilitate the needy should not be stopped.