Chandrababu Naidu offers ‘bundle’ of notes to elderly beggar

Visakhapatnam: For an unidentified elderly woman begging on the streets of Vizag, Sunday was a day when fate smiled on her in the form of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s unannounced tour of the city.

Not only did the Chief Minister hand over a bundle of currency notes (estimated by onlookers to be around Rs 2,000 to her, he also directed officials accompanying him to accommodate her at one of the night shelters being run by the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation.

Interestingly, the elderly woman accepted the money from the CM, but not the hospitality of the state as directed by him. She soon vanished from the shelter.

The elderly woman had approached Mr Naidu when he visited the Central Park during his whirlwind tour and was about to about to board his car. She told him that she didn’t have any family to take care of her and sought his help.

Mr Naidu asked her the reasons for her pitiable condition and handed over a bundle of currency notes to her. He then directed the GVMC commissioner to provide her shelter at one of the night shelters being run by the civic body.

“GVMC staff brought her to the shelter. She was murmuring something when she was being brought here. While we were finishing admission formalities when she simply disappeared in the confusion,” said a representative of an NGO that manages the shelter at TSR Complex.

The NGO representative added, “We often get these kinds of cases. Some destitute people, especially the elderly, don’t like to stay here.”