Mangalore: Rehabilitation of road beggars is a difficult task even with Beggar homes, and the only way to prevent begging was by stopping aims given to them, as they could hide their wealth and misuse children for begging purposes, Central Relief Committee chairman Ramalinmgappa stated at Pachanady, while visiting a Centre for Refugees there on Sunday.
Those who kindly give alms and crumbs to beggars perpetuate begging habits among destitutes, he pointed out. Referring to Karnataka Prohibition of Beggary Act 1975, people can be taken into custody for trial and rehabilitation there after. Stop giving alms and begging will go, he added. He cited grim cases of children being used elders by public begging and induced to sleep on footpaths by giving drugs to them by parents/wards among beggars. A first Beggars’ Survey was conducted by MSW students of Hampi University in Hospete Taluk of Bellary district, he said.
The chairman of CRC stated that shelters for beggars were run in Karnataka entirely from the funds generated from 3% beggary cess from ZPs, TPs and Gram Panchayats in state.
There was no pending cess in DK, he disclosed. The beggars in Karnataka were in 3 groups, “contract” (agreement to beg), “professional” (regular) and “forced” (children and others) as beggars. 50% of the “contract beggars came from other states like Andhra or Tamil Nadu, they arrive by train. , in Davangere, “forced” begging by aged parents of well-to-do children was seen. In Chitradurga, graduate beggars were found. The shelter near Kudupu outside Mangalore on way to Gurupura, had obout 90 inmates including 21 women.
The Central Relief Committee constituted under Prohibition of Beggary Act 1975, has 4 official and 4 other non-officials as members. The Govt has appointed the chairman from among these members, the visiting chairman stated here on Sunday. The committee work is supervised by Deputy Commissioners.