With the two-month long Operation Mukti nearing its end, the campaign aimed at rehabilitation of children found begging in Dehradun city appears to have failed in its purpose.
Some of the children identified and being worked upon under the campaign have started begging on the streets again.
With multiple stake holders working on this intensive campaign started by Uttarakhand police, it appears that they have failed in finding the solution to the core problem, which was to find alternate way for the eligible children to earn money.
Since the beginning of the campaign few activists and even stake holders had raised concerns about the main reason for these children choosing this line of work.
Even after repeated attempts by the counsellors from police department and different non-governmental organisations, some of the children can again be seen on the streets of Doon, begging or selling balloons.
When asked about this, Circle Officer (city) Shekhar Suyal, who is also the nodal officer of Operation Mukti said, “This is a problem regarding which we sent a report to State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR), after which they have sought reports from other departments on which government aided schemes can benefit these children.
We have identified 42 children who come from financially poor background and have no source of income.”
“Our team members are teaching at four different locations in the city. We have already enrolled 67 children in schools, out of which 20 even participated in the programme organised on International Yoga Day.”
An activist on the condition of anonymity said, “The campaign is back to square one. The campaign has still not found the solution to the core problem. They only targeted the city area of Dehradun, and could not even succeed in that.
They were also supposed to verify whether the adults accompanying the children on the streets are actually their parents or not through DNA testing and police to police verification, but they haven’t done that either.
For police to police to verification, even if they ask some other police station of a different state to provide information, they don’t follow up on it, and the file gets closed.” It is important to mention here that the police department devised plan with the help of several NGOs for skill development programmes that were to be initiated, however it doesn’t seem that the plan has been successful on the ground.
It is also pertinent to mention that district police have identified 292 children under Operation Mukti. Out of these, 119 were found only begging, 53 were non-school going and begging, 59 were working as rag pickers, 44 were found selling balloons or doing some other leg work, three were found in intoxicated condition, 171 children had poor state of living and 126 children were from other states.