Samikhsya Bureau
The initiative by the Odisha government to make the holy city Puri free from begging through a rehabilitation programme is surely a good step forward.
It is no mere task when an effort is made to counsel, motivate the beggars to clear their place of squatting and go to the rehabilitation houses. It requires patience, perseverance and a matching infrastructure that can lead them towards self-reliance.
Puri, a pilgrimage destination of world fame, constitutes only a part of the country’s over four lakh beggars. There the scenario is bit different than in other towns or cities.
They are not the ones who pop their hands into your cars’ windows at the traffic signals nor they knock at the window screens with a baby in a soporific state, clung to the arms of a lady.
They, in Puri, just squat at their designated locations and do begging exploiting the religious sentiments of pilgrims. There are over 700 plus beggars in Puri, reveals one source.
But what is going to be a bigger challenge for the administration is the medical part as there are a god number of beggars with diseases like leprosy and other problems like the mentally retard ones.
It is not all about the rehabilitation but the motivation for them to get trained in order to be employed so that, they can be shifted from the streets and in a larger pursuit, it would be a real rehabilitation if they can be accepted back by the families they belong to.
