G20 Summit: To paint better picture, homeless, beggars in Delhi to be shifted 

Indeed, Indian rulers have ‘sweet tongues and silly hearts’. They use all public meetings to flag their concerns for poor and enumerate schemes to alleviate poverty, but they humiliate and demean the poor, making them feel their status below humans when any international event takes place around their habitations.

For Delhi’s homeless and beggars, India’s G-20 presidency is going to add more trouble in the shivering cold as large number of them will either be shifted to dark, dingy government-run shelter homes or relocated. For them, it is like the Commonwealth Games moment when scores of homeless and beggars were driven out from the national capital and shanties along the route to the foreign dignitaries and players were covered with plastic. In short, all efforts were done to hide the ugly reality.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that “G-20 presidency is an opportunity to showcase India’s strength”, Delhi government held a meeting with all stakeholders to hide the poor.

Precisely, in view of the G-20 summit in March, the government chalked out a plan to remove and relocate beggars from the Hanuman Mandir area near the Kashmere Gate ISBT to night shelters of the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board. The meeting also involved officials of the Delhi government’s Social Welfare department, DUSIB and police take part in the meeting.

DUSIB member Bipin Rai said: “First, we will map the beggars and hold surveys to understand how many of them are there near the Kashmere Gate ISBT. We will also find out the number of family members of the beggars and proceed with the plan accordingly…We had a detailed discussion on Friday and a meeting with social welfare department and Delhi Police will be held on Saturday,” Rai told PTI.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, whose ‘pro poor’ image though faded yet still afresh in some constituencies, has directed the beggars around the ISBT should be removed and relocated in the shelters of DUSIB.

“CM has directed that beggars around Hanuman Mandir near ISBT should be removed and relocated in the night shelters of DUSIB. This exercise is necessitated keeping in view the meetings of the G20 summit,” an order issued by DUSIB CEO K Mahesh said.

A four-member committee, under the chief engineer of DUSIB, has been constituted to coordinate with government agencies and prepare an action plan by Tuesday to “shift the beggars to night shelters located at Dwarka and other places where space is available”.

‘Advocates for homeless, beggars’

Under the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959, which has been extended to Delhi, it is the mandate of the Social Welfare Department to prevent begging and formulate schemes for their welfare.

Convenor of National Forum for Homeless Housing Rights, Sunil Kumar Aledia alleged the decision has been taken “only to keep the area clean” and “free from the sight of unwanted people”. “The High Court has decriminalised the act of beggary and therefore nobody can be punished for it, nor any coercive action can be taken. Removing people from any place against their will, amounts to defiance of court order,” Aledia said.

India took over the presidency of the G20 on December 1. The summit will be a culmination of all the G20 processes and meetings held throughout the year among ministers, senior officials, and civil societies starting in December.

Since shelters homes are in bad shape, people are forced to live under flyovers, streets and markets. The Hindustan Times in a report quoted Indu Prakash, a member of the Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee for homeless shelters in Delhi, stating that the shelter homes of the government are in bad shape. “Due to this, beggars do not go to the night shelters and prefer to stay on the streets. Payments of some NGOs running the shelter homes are pending which also affects the quality of services in these places. The government should provide quality facilities so that beggars and other homeless people are encouraged to stay there rather than the government having to remove them and put them in the centres. They should also be provided skill training so that they can get employment,” said Prakash.

The Group of Twenty (G20) members represent around 85 per cent of the global GDP, over 75 per cent of the global trade, and about two-thirds of the world population.