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Beggars Of Hyderabad.
Beggars of Hyderabad
Exploitation
According to available statistics 40% beggars are women and about 23% are children
below 14 year age. Organized begging has become the new trend in twin cities in last few years.
There were many cases reported on Drug peddling and consumption, Mafia networks dealing
illegal organ and blood selling business, prostitution from these communities. These syndicates
force woman beggars into prostitution and are sexually abuse. According to Mrs. Archana Kiran
a social activist who works with an NGO there were instances where mafia networks and
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Beggars Of Hyderabad.
syndicates involving child beggars in drug pedaling. During her work with Aaasa State Govt.
initiative on HIV/AIDS she has noticed that the child beggars were lured with Biryani packets,
Marijuana etc. and were sexually exploited.
We heard similar kind of stories when we tried to interact with a few families stay at
Boda Uppal area of Hyderabad. While giving his account a child beggar named Ratna Babu from
tells us that there are about 450 beggar families that stay in Boda Uppal area itself. Apart from
these there were some reports about woman run syndicates that gather infant children from slums
and rent them to beggars on charge of 15ors per day. These syndicates collect an average
commission ranging from 45 Rs to 110 Rs for each infant kid they rent for one day. This makes
us recall a dialogue from Slum dog Millionaire ‘a crying kid in the hands of a beggar fetches
double money’.
“The above all is one side of the coin on the other side there is some lakhs of Rs
turnover” says Mohammed Rafiuddin, the director of HCHW. Rituraj Sapkota a young
documentary film maker from Hyderabad who produced a documentary on Beggars of
Hyderabad with title “Kings of the road” says that he has interacted with some of the richest
beggars of Hyderabad. According to him there were fulltime beggars who own multistoried
buildings, smoke costly cigarettes and also do money lending. In fact we were shocked when he
hands out a few photographs of some beggars who come to begging location on scooters, park
them in nearby cycle stand and get into the business. “If we observe the official statics the richest
beggar earns more than Rs 9000 a month and real figure are even more”, he adds.
There are about 15 NGOs that work on these issues spread out in different parts of the
city. These organizations carry out various activities ranging from providing alternate livelihood,
providing educational facilities to child beggars, Medical facilities, sleeping shelters etc. State
govt. has taken up some welfare activities like providing shelters to sleep, providing alternate
lively hood etc. Greater Hyderabad Municipality went a step ahead and recruited 2500 beggars
as sweepers, garbage collectors and parking fee collecting agents. The major drawback in
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Beggars Of Hyderabad.
Governmental schemes according to the social activists is that all Govt. schemes assume that
poverty as main cause for begging which is actually not in the real context. Most of the beggars
own acres of agriculture lands in their native places. Natural disasters like draught, floods etc.
has resulted in their migration to Hyderabad as beggars. Some of them were even victims of
human trafficking and organized begging.
Rehabilitation possibilities
Before devising new rehabilitation plans and schemes it is important to study the pitfalls
of the existing ones. The new rehabilitation plans should address something more than their
financial poverty like retaining their dignity, human trafficking, organized begging etc. Police
department has to act tough towards the Mafia and syndicates that encourage begging to use it as
a shield for their illegal activities. Child beggars are to be identified, counseled and are to be
admitted in welfare hostels run by state govt. providing alternate livelihood by setting us small
scale industries, recruiting them as contract labor in various industries. Take steps to reduce the
new migrants in to city this can be done with effective natural disaster management programs.
Proper implementation of rural employment scheme can reduce migrants and part time beggars.
NGOs and Corporates can be pitched in a various levels. It is important to address the root cause
and devise proper remedy to eradicate beggary instead of showing them away from cities using
force.