Shelters for homeless not BBMP’s priority, say NGOs

These are in Upparpet, Majestic and Hoodi,” said Sampath  T D, one of the NGO members.
According to BBMP, tenders can be called only after the elections are over
According to BBMP, tenders can be called only after the elections are over

BENGALURU: The city’s 5,000 odd urban homeless will not find relief from the scorching summer heat and harsh living conditions on the street anytime soon as the entire exercise of setting up shelters has been delayed, according to NGOs that are working with the municipal corporation since last October. Impact India, a consortium of 30 NGOs that surveyed the homeless in Bengaluru and identified buildings, has written to BBMP asking them to fast track the opening of shelters. 

Lack of will by Palike An excerpt of Impact India’s letter submitted to the Additional Commissioner (Welfare) reads,  “We request you to initiate the process of selection of NGOs for managing the shelters. Many stakeholders have been contacting us to rehabilitate the  people they see living or lying on the road. But without shelters we are unable to do anything.” Previously, the BBMP had given itself a  target of having 10 shelters up and running by January end and 30 by March end.  Moreover, with the election’s model code of conduct now in place, it means calling tenders for selecting NGOs to run each shelter can not take place anytime soon.  

Expressing  disappointment over the delay, Ramachandrappa HT, also a member of the NGO network said, “When we started the  exercise last year, there was  a lot of co-operation from  officials and media attention on the issue. However, it all died down later. It is very sad that after all our efforts to  survey the urban homeless and identify shelters, there has been no response from Joint Commissioners and higher-ups of BBMP.” Delay due to pre-poll work: Civic body Commenting on the same,  D Randeep, Special  Commissioner, Welfare  Department, BBMP, said, “It is true that the entire exercise has been put on the  back burner. The reasons for this are administrative  delays and pre-election work, which Joint Commissioners  at zonal level were also caught up with in the past few  weeks. We are now planning to have eight shelters functional by the end of this month,  run by the department itself.”

He added that tenders can be called only after the elections are done and for approvals  for other processes, they  will have to ask for permission from the Election Commission of India. “As for opposition faced at the ward level  from corporators or MLAs,  “I was not informed of it.  The BBMP need not take their consent as long as the government building is not being  used for any other purpose, as this is a priority project ordered for by the Supreme Court,” he said, adding that he will conduct a review meeting of the project this week with all welfare officers. 

Slow pace at zonal level Unhappy with the lack of progress by BBMP, some of them attribute the delay to poor will on part of the Joint Commissioners at zonal level. “By January 16, we identified 56 buildings that could be used as shelters across all eight zones and submitted it to the zonal level officers who worked with us and the Joint Commissioners (JCs) as well. Not even one shelter has been inaugurated. We wrote to the BBMP on March 2, asking them to start at least three of the shelters that were ready for rehabilitation.

These are in Upparpet, Majestic and Hoodi,” said Sampath  T D, one of the NGO members. Beema K, another NGO member, said the JCs need to look through the identified buildings list and submit it to the Welfare department head office. “The work remains stuck at the zonal level and the files don’t move forward. Moreover, we often hear reasons from them citing pre-election work,” she said. 

Opposition at ward level

Each zone had two NGO members and one Community Affairs Officer assigned to identify vacant government buildings that could be converted into shelters. “Corporators or MLAs would also tell us not to list certain buildings, even though they are BBMP-owned and currently unused. There is no interest in taking this forward from the ward level to the head office,” Sampath T D said .

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