A seminar on how to make Hyderabad a “Beggar Free City” has thrown up astounding figures of how those in the profession were making incomes unimaginable even for the most hardworking professionals.
At the seminar held by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and attended by the officials of various departments and representatives of several NGOs, it was revealed that more than 2,5000 beggars on the city roads were making as much as Rs 456 crore rupees per annum.
Earlier a survey by a local NGO had put the amount at only Rs 42 crore.
But the detailed and comprehensive survey reports by various organisations shared at the Seminar in the presence of Mayor B Rammohan, activists said that there were 25,000 beggars each of them earning Rs 500 per day taking their total turnover to Rs 456 crores.
However another report by another NGO put the figure of beggars at 14,000 and their annual earning at Rs 153 crore.
Jayaprakash Bharat, who heads one of the NGOs working on the problem of begging on the city roads told the seminar that 90 to 95 per cent beggars were fake and many of them were involved in criminal activities. Majority of these beggars had come from other States, as far as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh and made the city roads their homes earning money through begging, he said.
“only 5 per cent are real and needy people. All others are fake and doing it for money”, he said.
Expressing his concern over the increasing menace of professional beggars, the Mayor B Rammohan called for making Hyderabad a Beggar Free City.
“We will create a mass awareness among the people urging them not to give alms to such people. We will also take measures to rehabilitate the people who are genuinely in need of help”, he said.
Mayor was concerned that the beggars were spoiling the image of Hyderabad and many of them were also involved in criminal cases.
The activists said that even when the rehabilitation and shelter was offered to them, majority of the beggars were unwilling to accept it because no other work can offer them so much money as they are earning as beggars. “Their income here is very high”, said Jayaprakash.
Another activist Madhavi told the seminar that there was a need for taking care of the destitutes, children and disabled people while taking action against the professional beggars.
Interestingly the earnings of the minor beggars was more than the elders, it was noted.
Another activist Khalid Mohammed said that in the holy month of Ramadan, when the Muslim pay Zakat and give more charity the number of beggars increase further and there was a need for exercising caution while giving alms to such people, he said.