CHENNAI: The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) is going to procure three vans for the rescue of homeless people, at the cost of Rs 10 lakh each in two months.
After the arrival of the vans, the rescue of the homeless would be carried out dailyy as against the fortnightly rescues happening at present.
“Currently, we are using ambulances and other government vans for the rescue. While coordinators do the rescue in their zone every week on Thursday, a major rescue drive happens in the hotspots every fortnight. The recent one was on June 7,” said an official.
The three vans will be deputed in central, north and southern regions of Chennai.
Besides coordinators, each van will have one staff member, who will double up as a nurse and counsellor, to help convince the rescued people into going to shelters.
The hotspots where major rescue drives are conducted include Koyambedu bus stop, MGR Chennai Central railway station, Egmore railway station, Guindy railway station, Mylapore Kapaleeshwarar temple and Broadway among other areas.
“Apart from rescue, the vans, which will be fitted with LED screens would also be used to spread awareness through ad films on phone numbers available to rescue a homeless person in each zone,” said the official.
Report on app
The wing for homeless shelters of the GCC has sent a proposal to the higher authorities to add a separate tab on the Namma Chennai application for people to report on the homeless.
“If somebody sees a homeless person/kid, they can click a picture and upload it on the app with the details on their whereabouts and the rescue would be carried out by the nearest coordinator of the respective zone,” said an official.
Also, a proposal to provide a common helpline for the purpose for all the zones is on the anvil.
More shelters
The Greater Chennai Corporation is currently setting up 33 more shelters across the city at the cost of Rs 1.38 crore.
Of this, shelters in Zones 9 and 10 including the ones at TTK Road, Gurupuram, Desam Salai, Periyar Ramasamy, NSC Bose Road and Driver Street are nearing completion and will be ready in three months, confirmed a senior official overlooking the construction. Rest of them will be ready by January 2020.
Currently, there are 37 homeless shelters run by the Corporation across the city with 1,678 inhabitants.