Maharashtra: India’s 1st state to embrace the status of a ‘beggar free’ state

Mumbai, February 5: Fading out with the echoes of ‘Garibi Hatao’ slogan that swept away the nation, Maharashtra officials and authorities seems to have a positive outlook and taking things positively to train and educate the impoverished and homeless people of the state. This will help them to live a new life of respect in society, and also will aim to generate employment. Maharashtra government seems to be undertaking a more positive effort to benefit lakhs of underprivileged and homeless who barely manage to subsist on its streets.

 

The State Charity Commissioner along with other corporate and government help has enforced a drive which acts on emphasizing to educate and train the impoverished people into new workforce and also educate the children from the streets. Under a first-of-its-kind initiative in India, the authorities have decided to go ‘beggar-free’, flagging off a programme to rehabilitate beggars across the state by providing skill development training to them. This initiative saw its day of light in Pune, where this programme started and around 2,200 children had been modernized to avail education, and are currently pursuing their studies.

Shiv Kumar Dige, State Charity Commissioner is the brainchild behind this noble cause and he aims to improvise the conditions of the people living on streets. Taking help and support from various NGO’s, charitable trusts, self-help groups, small scale industries, Women and Child Development team have geared up to create an environment that focuses on development of the country. To join this drive many institutes and trusts have acted positively to take on the responsibility of providing education to children.

This will help generate employment as there is huge shortage of labourers in small industries as well as farmlands. The aim is to rehabilitate male beggars towards such employment like providing odd jobs like security guards to many. Those who are unskilled or physically challenged will not be left behind, and provided some training in fields like tailoring, carpentry and more.

It is often seen that these people fall prey to human trafficking or antisocial elements. There are millions of innocent children begging on the streets, who need an education to become the bright future of the nation. Many of these disadvantaged persons can be allocated to fill the space in the faltering workforce of small scale industries or manufacturing units in rural parts of the state, from where the educated youth are migrating anyway.