NEW DELHI // Urmila Maurya spends her days on
the pavement stringing flowers into garlands for devotees at the nearby Hindu
temple.
At night, she lays down on the same blanket
she uses for the flowers. When it gets really cold, she uses a plastic
tarpaulin to cover herself, but said the police sometimes come and tear it up
to discourage her from squatting in the open in New Delhi's Institutional Area,
an upmarket locality of the city.
"This is the poor's burden," said
Mrs Maurya, a 38-year-old widow. "To live and die on the streets on cold
nights."
Every winter, hundreds die in northern India.
This is even though India has one of the highest economic growth rates in the
world and, by some accounts, the world's most expensive home - Mumbai's US$1-2
billion (Dh4.4bn) "Antilla",
owned by Mukesh Ambani, one of the richest men in the world and head of
Reliance Industries.
They die not from the cold - temperatures
barely hit zero in the big cities in the north. They die because of age,
disease and lack of food. India might be booming, but its governments still
struggle to look after those at the bottom of the ladder.
Every night in Delhi, an average of 15
homeless people die on the streets, says to Harsh Mander, special commissioner
of India's Supreme Court for human rights and social justice. That figure is
climbing.
Officially, more than 150 people died in
December on the streets in Delhi and neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar
and Haryana.
But Mr Mander's figure, which was drawn from
a study by the Centre for Equity Studies, where Mr Mander is honorary chairman,
is thought to be low.
Mr Mander is examining solutions to the
severe shortage homeless shelters in the capital. There are an estimated
150,000 homeless people in Delhi. There are 112 homeless shelters.
In past years, authorities in the northern
states have handed out blankets and lit public bonfires. Delhi homeless
population is the highest in North India. This is largely due to the
large-scale migration from neighbouring states for work.
Most are illiterate day-wage labourers who
lack proper identification, which would give them access to affordable food and
housing programs, which are available to those who earn less than 32 rupees a
day.
So, they end up on the streets. Delhi's
homeless problem was worsened by the 2010 Commonwealth Games. To beautify the
city for the event, the New Delhi authorities drove tens of thousands of
pavement dwellers away from the roadsides by tearing down their makeshift huts.
Mrs Maurya was among those whose homes were
torn down. She sits beside a pile of broken bamboo and bricks piled high in a
corner, on the piece of pavement she now calls home. In August last year, three
months before the Commonwealth Games kicked off in Delhi, the police came
around and broke down her shack. She is too afraid to rebuild because whatever
she puts up may be torn down again.
Mrs Maurya has lived in the same spot on the
pavement for more than 20 years after she was brought there as a bride from her
village in the state of Uttar Pradesh, one of India's poorest.Mrs Maurya's slab
of pavement does not count for residency, and she lacks to the money to pay the
bribe to obtain a government identification card. She can't even afford to pay
bus fare to go back to her village. She earns 30 Indian rupees (Dh2) a day
stringing flowers into garlands. She, quite literally, has nowhere else to go.
"It has been difficult," she says. "But you make
do because there is nowhere else to go."
Her friend, Kalyani Devi, 50, also a widow,
is homeless as well.
"We are not beggars. We earn a living, but it's just that it is
not enough to sustain us." says Mrs
Devi.
No comments:
Post a Comment