A common scene at a traffic Signal these days other than the honking and exhaust gases are the child beggars who keep moving around the traffic signals begging as soon as the signal is red. Or how many of you have been followed by these children near the college or the bus stand.
Belgaum is no different to this and now one could find as many 8-10 children begging at the signals and a few with some infants as well.
If one watches them closely they target the Car owners more and bigger cars first, then the mopeds and then the others.
Belgaum based NGO Mahesh foundation along with others did a comprehensive survey of these child beggars and results of the survey are astonishing.
The survey could identify 216 local children and 76 who came here from other states like UP, Bihar, Haryana, Jharkhand. All the surveyed were within the age group of 1 to 14.
These children mainly reside in Vantmuri, Rukhmini Nagar & Ganeshpur. The main reason for the families which come over here is employment like construction labour.
Each child begs(earns) Rs.250 daily which is the minimum and most of the children begging have fathers who are drunkards and both parents and children have no formal education.
The money they get is spent on food and they have non veg food atleast once in two days and they love to watch hindi movies. Each and every new Hindi movie asked was seen by these children.
Most of them also drink and smoke heavily.
Some other facts:
17 children had mobiles with them
149 children had electronic gadgets like TV, Mixer etc at their home
36 were orphans but having one parent
23 were orphans without any parent
157 children had both parents living
out of the 216 children identified from Belgaum: 178 are residents from here and 38 are from other districts
174 children had parents who were healthy and could easily work for a living
The survey was conducted by Mahesh Foundation’s Mahesh Jadhav, Adesh Barde, Sandeep Patil, Shashidhar Nagnur and they were helped by Roshni Nilay a MSW student from Mangalore. The survey was conducted between 09.03.2011 to 23.05.2011.
These above facts are disheartening and a memorandum was given to the SP Sandeep Patil in which it was urged that such beggars should be removed from the city.
I have a question… Can this NGO take up the initiative of getting these children into schools??? & if there is any such NGO doing that job, why do we still have these kids on roads????
Hi Ameet Joshi
This is Mahesh Jadhav from Mahesh Foundation We are already adopted 8 child beggars in our AADHAR orphanage in kanabargi belgaum. during our survey period and we are already approaching this type of child beggars parents.Mahesh foundation is private managed NGO so we are some restrictions.this type of chilld mahesh foundation help the children who are in need of Shelter, Daily food & Education.
hi mahesh really ur doing great job for orphan children & society.
please contact me at tilakwadivoice (at) gmail.com. i would like to know more about your work.
WOKE UP GUYS…..
good work guys!!!
Reading all this information i think Belgaum police has to do somthing on the parents those are forcing their childs to begg???
children ve become beggars by luck not by thier choice …. now its CHANGE to " children ve become beggars by their choice " its human tendency, tht when he gets money, he's way of life style changes , n d same as happned wid them.. when they ve enough money to eat non-veg then y would they go to veg? drinkin & smoking ez one thing which everyone wants to do even after having restrictions , then y not these ppl who has no one to care fo them..
NGO ppl ve provided schools wid free education & meals , but beggars want to lead FREE life widout education ,& when they can earn 250 per day then y do get into such schools where they dont get non veg, drinks n smoke..
Begging as such is a lucrative business now and also a profession for many.. This is the only profession where the weakest gets paid the highest.. The solution is not in building free homes/schools or providing free food & education..
we need some stringent laws which curbs begging making it a social offense. And also the proper implementation of such laws is important.. We cannot put the burden of chasing away these beggars on the police at this stage, as the police departments are under staffed in almost every state of India..
The solution, more or less is in our hands.. Everyone of us need to understand tat we are not doing a great help or earning some 'punya' by giving these beggars a few bucks… We need to discourage them from begging.. Only when they realize tat there are no returns from their begging business , they would look for some better ways to lead their life…
So, if u really want to help them & the whole society, next time u spot a beggar, give him/her a card with the contacts of organizations which would rehabilitate them, instead of giving them those worthless coins & notes from your pocket
Why can't the international Airport be placed between Belgaum & Hubli..? It could be near Kittur.
In this way it would benefit both the cities including Dharwad, and also the surrounding areas.. Any person from these cities will have to travel for around only 45 minutes only in this case. The pros and cons will be evenly distributed. Belgaum as a second largest exporter and the second political capital of the state really deserves a high tech airport.. And also Hubli-Dharwad being the biggest agglomeration after Bangalore need an Airport.. Belgaum & Hubli both have distinct advantages, which needs to be combined together.
So, An International Airport near Kittur would surely be successful and sustainable in all terms.
Once this Airport starts operating, both the present Belgaum & Hubli airports can be closed for commercial operations.
The Airports Authority of India, instead of developing and operating two different airports in a radius of 100km, can better operate a single larger airport at one place in the centre.
Our MLAs and MPs should pls take up this issue to the Govt & AAI.
Generally we had noticed such beggars 3 years before,,,wat i fell is that with the enterants like bihari's, and UPites this area…it cud give a heavy rise to ORGANISED and SYNDICATED activity in this area in future …so its essential to curb such activities at early stage.
being a foreigner and living in the city, i have noticed that the children spot me quick and easily.i do not hand out money in this fashion for it will only lead to more children joining in the traffic begging dance. yes, very dangerous. only solution is to cut off the source which means no handing out money in the middle of traffic. somebody must be doing it or they would not be there. again, not a problem that will be solved by police. they could care less and that is understandable. it must be our decission to not deal with these children risking their lives in dangerous traffic.
Mahesh, please contact me at tilakwadivoice (at) gmail.com. I would like to hear more about your work.
The above article was in extremely poor taste. It hurt my feelings that you have shown these child beggars in such terrible light. We have to remember that these beggars are above all – children. I believe that you are a father of a kg child yourself. You have to remember that children do not choose to be born in the families that they are born into. It is not by choice that they beg, they do not know any differently coz they have no concept of what is means to reside in a stable home, w/ possibly 2 parents who have a steady source of income, w/ a roof over their head, wearing decent clothes and an assured meal at breakfast, lunch and dinner like you and your kids do. .Think about when it rains or it storms or it's cold or extremely hot, yyou go in a comfortable shelter, do these kids have anywhere to go? Kids are meant to be in school, to learn to be productive members of society. These children are NOT be judged by what their parents do or have done. They deserve better than the fate they live. For that matter, every child deserves that.
I noted that you had NO constructive advice to people that deal w/ these beggared children. Perhaps you could have suggested Adarsh- a place for orphans, or perhaps you could have suggested social services, or references to social workers or places that these children can go to- a possible safe haven. Most importantly, use your words to inspire regular common people to do something for these children, so their life and their children are not born in the same life cycle again. We all know that if you feed someone, all you are doing are fixing an immediate need, but teach someone to fish, then you are providing them a sustainable existence.
As to develop belgaum more, there should be education given to these children not by just commenting on this situation we have to be practical and participate in this….i have found soo many children just front of sri nagar garden begging with infants, myself and my mom once offered 2 children for school and told that we will help you for your future but these children are not ready for this they like to beg and feed their self…once even we offered a healthy man a good labour work and earn respectfully and feed his family but he refused too….we have to do some thing practically to change their mentality to have a good life instead of begging….