Street beggars on prowl need to make them productive

PS BALI

Jammu October 5

Begging in public places from street corners, outside schools and colleges, shopping malls, public transport and even though religious places has become a common view these days. This common urban problem, has taken alarming dimensions in even the smaller city like Jammu.

Begging, the profession or menace is increasing, day after day, in the city of temples, perhaps because of its being a large pilgrim destination of North India.

The holy places are enormously becoming the begging hubs, elsewhere in the country as well, where a large number of beggars scattered throughout the premises could be found, some begging alms and others trying to revoke sympathy by making emotional appeals. We often see children mutilated and disfigured being subjected to begging. Most of them are from outside the state. Beggars are an omnipresent sight in the city.

Being the city of temples, Jammu is fast becoming the most lovable place of the beggars who mostly come from other states like Orrisa, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Gujarat along with their families, with the hope of getting good alms here. Empty spaces under the fly overs, footpaths are the sweet homes of these people and even some have developed colonies in the areas close to the city.

Then whether it is some public place, some school or college, near the bus stand, some office or any other place where the public influx is more, beggars can be seen every where. In buses also mostly the small girls, carrying small temples with photographs of deities usually come and visit every passenger begging for alms.

Women and men keep a close watch on the children and prevent them from escaping. Beggars earn more than casual labourers. In Hindu philosophy, there are different days which are meant for specific God or Goddess, they catch up with myth also, like carrying a photograph of Mata Durga on Tuesday, carrying idol of the lord Shiva on Monday and there are so many who can be seen coming door to door especially on Saturday carrying an idol of 'Shani Dev' to beg alms, making hefty bucks.

In the last few years, begging is fast becoming a trade. Children seeking alms is not uncommon in the temple city. Many children can be seen begging around the temples, bus stands and commercial streets. Their target is usually the affluent class and foreigners. They sometime keep following the person until he/ she pays something. Mostly children between the age group of three to seven and that too mostly girls, their number is fast increasing.

"Number of beggars has increased to a large extent in the recent past. This menace is growing in the city. When the public refuse to give alms, some beggars become aggressive and many even follow the people. In the evening mostly, in crowed areas large number of beggars are there and sometime if you don’t give them some alms they will snatch your belongings. Authorities should take some measures to curb the menace," says a student Meenakshi.

“Beggars have become a headache for us. In a single day we confront more than 20 to 30 beggars and if we don’t pay or object, they react in a revengeful manner. You never know what they will say. Increasing number of beggars has become a problem. Wherever you will go, you will find the beggars there. Some faces of the beggars now have become so common that almost they are known every where in the city as they keep on changing their place every second day. They scare the kids, snatch things especially eatables from them and even scare the women. That is how crime starts, so handing over beggars, after rounding them up, to social and legal authorities cannot check the problem of beggary, it needs some strict measures," said Prof Sunil Tickoo, adding that government should adopt some strict measures to stop such activities and utilize beggars in productive approach by providing them with weight machines and other such small trading employments.

How street beggars can be utilized?

Beggars are very common in almost in the street on every traffic point in a street, religious places, market...etc. Often they are neglected and burden of the society. But they too have an expertise and advantage over other people.

They are keen observer, pretty quick and adapted to live in very harsh climatic condition such as hot, cold and even in rainy season throughout the day. In addition they learnt applied human psychology and apply much efficiently than many professionals.

By seeing their skills, they are well suited for informer who could track all suspicious events happening or going to happen in traffic point/mall/market.

Jammu is running severe short of labours and that deficit can be flied by beggars above minor age.

Beggars have also adapted to new trend for bringing their broods aging between 4-6 years on streets to gain more sympathy, but even sometimes they are the cause of fatal accidents.

According to experts, Indian Government has initiated a scheme of Sarv Siksha Abhiyaan for poor and deprived class, so beggars instead of launching their kids on streets, admit them in the schools, where they impart good education with timely meal.