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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | ‘Beggars' laws must be replaced with welfare laws'

‘Beggars' laws must be replaced with welfare laws'

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published Published on Dec 18, 2010   modified Modified on Dec 18, 2010

Legal experts have called for repealing of anti-beggary laws and demanded effective implementation of welfare and social security laws for enhancing sources of livelihood for the beggars.

Usha Ramanathan, law researcher, Poverty and Rights, New Delhi, and B.B. Pande, former professor of Law, University of Delhi, said prevention and prohibition of beggary laws enacted in several States have infringed upon individual liberties and have provided powers to State authorities to round up beggars and imprison them without trial.

They were speaking at a national workshop on ‘Anti-beggary legislations: legal and policy perspectives' organised by the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy (CSSE), National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore.

For several decades, beggars have been roaming the streets of Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata, at the mercy of anti-beggary laws meant to create ‘aesthetically appealing' and ‘liveable' cities. Rehabilitation centres have systematically excluded beggars from public spaces and failed to protect liberty and freedom of the people. Deaths of inmates at a Beggars' Colony on Magadi Road here recently was a clear instance of negligence by authorities, they said. Ms. Ramanathan said Medical, Social Welfare and Police departments have misused anti-beggary legislations that have been enacted by several States, including Karnataka. These anti-begging Acts have criminalised begging, she said.

Prof. Pande said the State should frame welfare and social security programmes on the lines of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act to provide employment to beggars. The authorities in various departments need to be sensitised about the beggars' plight and the State should be made responsible to take up welfare schemes for beggars, he said.

Distinguishing between habitual and voluntary begging, he said efforts should be made to enhance skills of beggars to bring them into the mainstream. However, many firms would not come forward to give jobs to beggars, he cautioned. Stating that legal aid needs to be given to beggars to escape from the clutches of police harassment, he said beggars' laws need to be replaced with ‘welfare laws'.


The Hindu, 18 December, 2010, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article960029.ece


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