Civic body to bank on beggars to tackle Lucknow's trash deposits

LUCKNOW: In a novel move, the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) plans to rehabilitate all beggars in the city by moving them to shelter homes and assign them civic duties to ensure clean surroundings as well as earn for living.
Following chief minister Yogi Adityanath's recent orders in this regard, municipal commissioner Indramani Tripathi has directed all zonal officials to identify the beggars living in their respective zones and shift them to nearby shelter homes.
"We have directed all zonal officials to identify the beggars currently living in the city. After completing our survey, we will start shifting them to our 45 shelter homes," Tripathi told TOI.
"We will then assign them the duty of collecting user charges for door-to-door garbage collection from 5.8 lakh households in the city. However, we cannot deploy all beggars for just collecting user charges, so, we will also depute some of them in daily sanitation work like collection of garbage, cleaning drains and sweeping of roads," Tripathi added.
LMC has decided that the rehabilitated beggars will be paid 10-20% of the user charge collected by them, while those used for other sanitary work will be paid Rs 300 per day, the same amount given to contractual workers hired by it.
The civic body has been given 45 days to shift all beggars from roadsides to shelter homes.
"We will have to provide basic amenities like water, bed sheets and toilet facilities at the shelter homes for these beggars. We will seek help from state government if required," Indramani Tripathi added.
According to a 2014-15 study by Sharad Patel, a social activist working for rehabilitation of beggars, more than 4,500 people in city are totally dependent on begging for livelihood.
"It is a great initiative but should be implemented properly. LMC should also organise meditation camps for these beggars to improve their mental health, as most of them are addicted to substance abuse," said Patel.