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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | A king-size life in Delhi’s beggar home -Maria Akram

A king-size life in Delhi’s beggar home -Maria Akram

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published Published on Jul 12, 2016   modified Modified on Jul 12, 2016
-The Hindu

Nine days for release, the sole inhabitant fears losing benefits

New Delhi:
Arvind Singh is not a beggar, but he chooses to be seen as one.

For three months now, the 60-year-old with sunken cheeks and arched eyebrows has been the only resident of Delhi government’s shelter for 1,525 beggars at Lampur, Narela.

The single-storied home on 22 acres shares a compound with the Foreigners Detention Centre. There are nearly 70 rooms here but except for Singh’s, the others are locked.

But Singh is spending sleepless nights these days. He paces his 20x 20 room because he is just nine days away from release, after two years of living ‘too comfortably’ at the shelter.

He has three ‘personal’ caretakers, and enjoys benefits like lodging, free food, medical treatment, clothes and toiletries. His room has a desert cooler, a TV, a bed and a small ‘temple’ with idols kept on his steel trunk. He gets a kilo of milk every day and fruits as snacks.

The government spends Rs. 5 crore a year to run the facility. The funds go mostly to pay staff salaries and for kitchen expenses. There are 11 staffers.

Records say no beggar was sent to Lampur in 2016. The last time the shelter was close to capacity was during the Commonwealth Games, when the then CM Sheila Dikshit, carried out a cleanliness drive.

Begging is an offence in Delhi under the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959, (the Act extends to the capital) and beggars are frequently picked up by police and social welfare officials. He first arrived in January 2014 but after his release, it took him six months to be caught again. “I plan to spend the rest of my life here,” says Singh.

The Hindu, 12 July, 2016, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-kingsize-life-in-delhis-beggar-home/article8836002.ece?homepage=true


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