CUTTACK: A letter petition has been filed in the Orissa High Court seeking judicial intervention in implementation of the Supreme Court’s directive on right to shelter of homeless persons in urban areas.
The apex court, in a judgment, had ordered construction of shelters for the urban homeless in each State/Union Territory as per operational guidelines for Scheme of Shelters for Urban Homeless under National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM). The letter petition to enforce the directive in Odisha in letter and spirit was filed by Dibyajyoti Palei of ‘Mo Odisha Mahan’, a social service organisation of Bhubaneswar.
As per the petition, the State government has constructed shelters for urban homeless at Cuttack, Bhubaneswar, Puri, Berhampur, Bhadrak, Balasore, Baripada and other towns. The shelters have a total capacity of 500 beds, which is less than one percent of the total population of people residing on footpaths.
The shelters, which do not provide food to the inmates and amenities like clothing and healthcare, are lying vacant as their caretakers seek documents like Aadhaar and voter ID cards from the homeless. “This has emerged as a bottleneck in successful implementation of the Supreme Court’s directive. The destitute suffer due to lack of official recognition,” the petition states.
The Registry had referred the petition to the High Court Legal Services Committee which has asked its lawyer Ashok Prasad Mishra to give his legal opinion on the matter.