Ashish Sharma is on a mission for a noble cause. Armed with the tricolour and two rucksacks, the 29-year-old mechanical engineer from Delhi has embarked on a 17,000-km journey on foot with the aim of spreading awareness of eliminating child beggary.

After securing his engineering degree in Delhi, Mr. Sharma began his career as a mechanical engineer in a multinational firm in Sonipat in Haryana.

Talking to The Hindu, Mr. Sharma described the incident that changed his life and inspired him to undertake the mission. While returning home from work one evening, he came across a lean child begging with a bleeding hand. Moved by his plight, he took the child home, gave him first aid, some new clothes and got him enrolled in a nearby school with the assistance of an NGO.

“I got him enrolled in school and took care of his expenses. But the thought of other children trapped in similar circumstances troubled me. I decided to launch a mission against child beggary,” said Mr. Sharma, who reached here from Mysuru on Friday after completing the Karnataka leg of the journey.

Quits job

In 2015, Mr. Sharma quit his job to pursue his mission to cover the entire country on foot to create awareness of making the country free of child beggary.

“After doing extensive research, I found that the condition was going from bad to worse. The government-run welfare schemes hardly reached those who actually deserved it, owing to lack of awareness,” he said.

“We cannot sensitize the public to the issue unless we meet them personally and a countrywide tour was perhaps the best way to meet the masses,” he said.

“Journeying on foot was not an easy task, but my goal to make India a nation free of child beggary kept me going,” Mr. Sharma said.

Mr. Sharma travels around 30 to 40 km a day and meets thousands of people to make them aware of the welfare schemes that could change an individual’s life. So far, he has covered 14,423 km in 31 States and Union Territories.

Mr. Sharma visited two schools in the district and interacted with students. He will leave for Tamil Nadu on January 31 after completing his Kerala leg of the expedition