By Mohammed Siddique, TwoCircles.net,
Do you know how many beggars are there in India and what is their collective annual income? How much a beggar spends on his food and where the remaining money goes?
An interesting study by a Hyderabad based sociologist Dr Mohammed Rafiuddin has come up with some interesting and incisive details about the beggars and problem of begging in the country, especially in Hyderabad.
After a two year long survey, which has been published under the title “Beggars in Hyderabad”, Dr. Rafiuddin found that there were 7.3 lakh beggars across India who earn as much as Rs 180 crore ( 45 million US dollars). The study put the number of beggars in Hyderabad at 11000 with a total earning of Rs 15 crore.
The study further revealed that a beggar normally spends only 20% of his earning on food requirement and as much as 30% on bad habits (smoking, drinking etc). “As much as 50% goes towards the savings”, says Dr. Rafiuddin.
“Even this huge amount of earning is not able to improve their condition as this charity and assistance is scattered and disorganized”, says Dr. Rafiuddin, whose book was released by Dr. Shanta Sinha, the Chairperson, National Commission for Child Welfare.
Dr. Rafiuddin, who is the director, Hyderabad Council for Human Welfare, took up the survey of the beggars after Arvind Kumar, the then collector of Hyderabad had launched an initiative for the rehabilitation of beggars to make the city free of begging.
Speaking on the occasion Dr. Shanta Sinha said that those who give alms to the beggars are not doing any good to them. “Instead of giving alms to them we should strive for a permanent solution to their problems and for their rehabilitation. The beggars are not a problem but they are victims and a product of the shortcomings in our social system”.
Instead of individual charity and alms-giving to the beggars, Shanta Sinha called for an organized and collective charity system to permanently solve the problem. “If any comprehensive proposal is put before the National Commission I will extend full cooperation”, she said adding that the presence of a large number of children and the elderly people among the beggars was a cause of grave concern.
She condemned the new trend of lack of respect for the elderly people in the society. “If we don’t respect the elderly people, we will also not get any respect”, she said. The number of beggars was increasing because the majority of the people were escaping from their responsibility, she added.
Senior IAS officer Arvind Kumar, who had initiated a program for the rehabilitation of beggars when he was collector of Hyderabad said that no country in the world was free of beggars. “I have seen Beggars in a large number even in New York. But contrary to the Indian beggars, the Beggars in American cities are more dangerous as they become violent and start fighting with the people. Begging is also a problem in countries of Latin America and Africa”, he said.
Pointing out that there were lot of children among the beggars in Hyderabad, Arvind Kumar underlined the need for opening four of five play schools with the cooperation of corporate sector in different parts of the city to rehabilitate them.
Though begging in punishable offence under the law but as long as people were there to give money, begging will continue. He revealed that the beggars spend only 20% of their earning on fod and 30% on bad habits and save 50%.
Arvind Kumar along with some NGOs had made an attempt to rehabilitate the beggars by providing them houses, ration cards, pension schemes and means of livelihood through self employment schemes but it failed to take off.