In two nights, over 1,400 homeless identified in Bengaluru

BENGALURU: A survey carried out by Impact India Consortium and the Dream India Network, in association with

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike

(

BBMP

), has found that there are 1,433 homeless people curling up in the cold near bus stands and railway stations, on pavements and under flyovers in and around City Market and Majestic alone.

The three-day night survey, which began on Friday, is being conducted by 50 volunteers from 37 NGOs. It includes collecting details about age, gender, occupation, health condition and hometown of the surveyed people.

“We found 1,433 homeless people in the areas surveyed — KR Market, Cottonpet, Binny Mill Road, Anand Rao Circle, Majestic bus station and railway station and Magadi Road (south and west zones). Almost all of them are migrants, having come to Bengaluru from Ballari, Hospet, and even parts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. While most of them are elderly and single men, we even found 45 families sleeping on the streets,” said TD Sampath, convenor, Impact India, adding they gave blankets to the people they identified.

According to the surveyors, most of the homeless had come to Bengaluru for work and were into rag-picking. They said most of them were older men, some of whom had been thrown out of their homes by their children, followed by younger men who came to the city for work. “We even came across some transgenders, but found very few young women on the streets,” said Sampath.

‘City needs 100 night shelters’

Gopinath, a member of the independent impartial committee constituted on the directions of the Supreme Court, said the BBMP would have to set up at least 15-30 night shelters to house those identified. “As of now, the city only has a handful of shelters, but as per a Supreme Court directive there should be one shelter for a population of one lakh, indicating Bengaluru needs at least 100 shelters,” he said.

According to the 2011 census, there are 4,647 homeless families in Bengaluru and these include 15,333 people, but activists working for the rights of the homeless estimate the population to be at least 25,000.

“On Sunday night, we will be surveying a few areas near KR Market and Gandhinagar, and expect to find another 700-800 people. Going by this survey, there are probably over 2,000 homeless people in these areas,” added Sampath.

‘Will start work on setting up shelter’

The BBMP however says it’s unlikely to survey the remaining six zones any time soon. “We wanted to first survey the pockets where these people are concentrated, as there is no point surveying each of the 198 wards. Once we identify everyone in these pockets, we will expand the survey to the remaining areas. I have already written to the zonal joint commissioners, and we are looking for spaces that we can take on rent and set up night shelters. In the next 2-3 weeks we will try and start work on setting up shelters on a rental basis, and by March 31 we should have at least 20-25 shelters in these areas,” said D Randeep, special commissioner, welfare.