As many as 33,000 homeless people have perished in the National Capital since 2004 due to various reasons and the dearth of night shelters has only aggravated the problem of survival for these street people, the latest Union Home Ministry figures reveal.
According to the data released by the zonal integrated police network under the Union Ministry, 33,518 homeless people died in Delhi between January 2004 and October 2015. For those forced to live under the open sky, the maximum deaths were reported in June as 3,695 destitutes died in this particular month during these years.
Sunil Kumar Aledia of the Centre for Holistic Development, which tabulated the data, said paucity of night shelters was one of the major reasons for the high number of deaths.
“There are nearly 150,000 homeless people in Delhi, of which only 4,890 get shelter. This is a mere 3.2 percent of the homeless population in the Capital city. The rest are left to fend for themselves squeezed into limited spaces available otherwise, running the risk of contracting diseases. They often sleep on the roadside that increases the chances of accidents,” Aledia said. He said most homeless died of communicable diseases and malnutrition. Such diseases are caused by a lack of basic amenities and hygiene.”Not to talk of the people living on the roads, even those living in shelter homes do not get basic facilities there, which makes them prone to several fatal diseases. The shelter space is deficient by 87.4 percent of the Delhi Master Plan-2021 norms,” he said.