Mayor Asha Lakra inaugurated a newly revamped shelter home of Ranchi Municipal Corporation situated in the premises of Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) on Sunday.
The revamped shelter home has a number of facilities for the homeless, right from box beds and cushions to blanket, mosquito net as well as room heaters.
On the occasion, Mayor Asha Lakra said, “Ranchi Municipal Corporation is constantly working towards the well being of its citizen and the new facilities in this shelter home will help the homeless combat the chilly temperature in winter.”
At present, seven beds have been installed in the shelter home while 13 more will be installed by Monday night. City Manager Vikas Kumar said, “We have purchased 110 beds at present for all the shelter homes of RMC, costing Rs. 12,000 each. All the shelter homes will be provided facilities similar to the one at RIMS.”
At present there are 13 shelter homes under RMC of which one is being refurbished, two are newly constructed and not yet been handed over to RMC while 10 are functional.
RMC has empanelled four private agencies to operate these shelter homes. The agencies include Jharkhand Infrastructural Construction Pvt Ltd which has seven shelter homes, Jamshedpur based Furida having two shelter homes, Sahyogini handling three shelter homes and Delhi based Santosh NGO having one shelter home.
In a bid to ensure proper functioning of these shelter homes, RMC has formed teams including 14 community officers and several enforcement officers who will visit shelter homes regularly and update RMC about their condition through GPS and photographs.
“We are going to conduct close monitoring of these shelter homes,” Kumar said.
In a bid to ensure that those spending nights on street get a place to sleep, RMC conducts regular drives to identify such people and take them to shelter homes.
“We do take people to shelter homes but those who are mentally unfit do not return and prefer spending nights on the road as they might feel that we are trying to capture them,” Kumar said.
To deal with this problem, RMC has made a proposal of having a separate shelter homes for mentally challenged and differently abled people.
“We will form a team which will include two people from each of the four empanelled agencies who will move around at night, identify such people in need and take them to shelter homes,” Kumar said.
Meanwhile, the RMC is also planning to install a sanitary pad disposal machine at the only women’s shelter home near Pahadi Madir. “The plan is to install the machine with the funds of corporate social responsibility (CSR) of any company,” Kumar said.