Hyderabad: The TS prisons department has picked up about 9,000 beggars so far in an attempt to take them off the roads, and is providing them shelter, education, jobs and identity documents like Aadhaar cards.
DGP, Prisons, V.K. Singh said the unused infrastructure like the observation homes for boys in the Chanchalguda and Cherlapally jail premises was being used as a rehabilitation centre, where beggars are to do PT exercises and attend classes. They are employed in the petrol bunks run by the prisons department, and in its other ventures.
“Having homeless people asking for alms on road and at junctions among other places leaves a bad impression with tourists. Female beggars are often targeted by criminals who hire them as mules or push them into other criminal activities,” Mr Singh said.
Some of the inmates were happy at being given a second chance. Mr Murali Krishna, 42, who was picked up along with four others while he was asking for alms at Suchitra circle, said, “It is literally a life-changing moment for us as people used to look down upon us when we went looking for a job.”
He is housed in the Cherlapally jail premises. “We have been given a roof over our heads and proper food once again. We never dreamt that we had this in our fate,” he said.
A psychologist has been hired to provide them counselling. Apart from healthcare facilities on the premises, a doctor is assigned to check up on the inmates of the rehabilitation centre regularly.
The initiative will be replicated in the districts as well, as most of the families travel from there to city daily. “The special drive was organised to rehabilitate beggars in coordination with NGOs, the GHMC, and the police on October 20 last year. The inmates are given three meals a day and served non-veg food on Sundays,” said Mr K. Arjun Rao, superintendent of the Cherlapally open-air jail.
The observation homes for boys in the jail premises are vacant, as the city now has its own juvenile justice shelter homes and other services, DGP Singh said.
