AFTER IVANKA LEAVES, BEGGARS BACK ON HYDERABAD’S STREETS
HYDERABAD: Begging in public places is an eyesore that is difficult to eradicate and the authorities in Telangana are realising it the hard way.
Weeks after they rounded up and removed hundreds of beggars from the streets in the run up to Ivanka Trump’s visit to the state capital, people seeking alms are back in business.
Police in Hyderabad had last month proclaimed begging as an offence and banned people from seeking alms ahead of the November 28-29 visit to the city by the daughter of the US president Donald Trump. But after a month, the government-run shelters where the beggars were lodged on being removed from the streets are mostly empty with the inmates going back to where they came from.
“Now, only 10 female beggars are left with us in the Cherlapalli shelter. In the Chanchalguda shelter, only 30 beggars are left. All the remaining left the within no time,” K Arjun Rao, superintendent of the Cherlapalli open air jail and in-charge of the Anand Ashram shelters that housed the beggars within the Cherlapalli and Chanchalguda jail premises ahead of Trump’s visit, said.
The police order banning begging in public places was to be in force until January 7.
Most of the beggars left with their relatives after giving an undertaking that they would not beg again.
Rao said if the same beggars were caught again in the act, they would be handed over to the police and prosecuted.
CITY POLICE HAD LAST MONTH RULED BEGGING AS AN OFFENCE AND BANNED PEOPLE FROM SEEKING ALMS AHEAD OF THE VISIT BY US PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER
Meanwhile, Hyderabad police are planning to launch a fresh drive against begging from December 25.
A jail official said the director general of police (prisons) VK Singh has ordered that anyone who helped in identifying beggars would get a cash award of ~500 per “culprit” caught. “In fact, rehabilitation of beggars in special beggar homes is a continuous process and is part of initiatives taken up by the prisons department,” the official added.
Rao said the beggars rounded up would be provided with counselling during their stay in the shelters and advised not to take up begging again. “If necessary, we would also offer employment opportunities to eligible persons among them in petrol bunks and other stores run by the department,” he said.