Beggar-free Hyderabad: Duo picked up from streets get Rs12,000

HYDERABAD: In a first, two persons who were picked up from streets as part of the ongoing ‘Beggar-free Hyderabad’ campaign have been given jobs with a salary of Rs12,000 per month by the Telangana prisons department.  The decision was taken by the Superintendent of special homes for beggars after assessing their capabilities in managing the shelter home -- Anand Ashram. 

Ch Uday Kumar is a BSc computer science graduate from Hyderabad and Raj Kumar is a trained masseur from Tamil Nadu. Both of them have been given the responsibility of overseeing and managing the shelter home. While Raj Kumar guards the main entrance, Uday keeps records and collects background information of new entrants. They have been at the campus for more than 35 days.   

“I have worked hard for this. Now, I can finally make money and get back to my regular self,” says Raj Kumar who moved from Adayar in Chennai to Hyderabad. The 26-year old was trained as a masseur in Kerala and worked there earning about Rs 700 a day. Raj Kumar claims he was working as a cook at a hotel in Nampally earning Rs 500 a day and was mistaken for a beggar by the officials who saw him drunk and passed out at the Nampally railway station. 

Uday Kumar, who is physically disabled, says it was lack of human and social values that brought him down to begging on streets. He claims he worked earlier as a delivery agent for an e-commerce company.
He was rescued from Barkatpura junction where he had been begging for a living for four months. “ I am being trained to operate the software used to record information in the department,” said Uday.  “Raj Kumar will start to work in Ayurvedic village as a masseur and Uday Kumar as a receptionist.  Both of them will get a salary of Rs12,000 and will get increments based on their performance,” says M Sampath, superintendent of the special homes.