HYDERABAD: Beggars on Hyderabad’s streets and begging as issue have been in existence for at least 61 years, from the time Hyderabad came into existence as capital city of an Indian state. The growth rate of beggar population in city is almost equal to that of the city’s population growth rate.
Gravity of the begging issue in Hyderabad was highlighted in 1956 itself, when Hyderabad was made capital of the newly formed Andhra Pradesh. In that year, the number of beggars was pegged at 5,000 by a survey titled ‘Report on a Socio-economic and Health Survey of Street Beggars in Hyderabad-Secunderabad City Area’ by Indian Institute of Economics (IIE).
The report had listed disability, old age, poverty, unemployment and immigration from rural areas for better earning prospects and escaping clutches of money-lenders as some prime reasons for people getting into begging.
Fast forward to 2008, a report by an NGO - Hyderabad Council of Human Welfare grabbed everyone’s attention as it pegged the number of beggars in Hyderabad at 10,446 and their combined earning at `15 crore per annum. The report had found that around 82 per cent of the beggars belonged to SC, ST and OBC communities and about 4 per cent were Muslims. It also mentioned that major portion of earnings from begging were spent on food, shelter, drug habits and entertainment.
In 2016, at a seminar on making Hyderabad ‘beggar-free’, attended by Mayor of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, Bonthu Rammohan, it was revealed that the city has about 25,000 beggars. From 1956 till 2016, in a span of 60 years, growth rate of beggars in Hyderabad has been 400 percent, little less than the growth rate of Hyderabad’s population of about 500 percent, from 1951 census till 2017.
One important measure required from the government in tackling begging and reducing number of beggars on Hyderabad’s streets is provision of adequate jobs and provision of livelihood skills to beggars caught from the streets, points out Gattu Giri, Joint Secretary of Amma Nanna Anada Ashramam(ANAA).
ANAA is managing the Anand Ashrams in Cherlapally and Chanchalguda prisons where beggars caught from streets are brought, as begging is illegal as per central and state laws.
Giri says, “50% of the beggars are into begging due to poor socio-economic circumstances.” As per the Census 2011 data, there are 2.7 lakh people in Hyderabad and Secunderabad in the age group of 20-49, a majority of them in the age group of 20-29, who fall in category of ‘non-workers’ and are ‘available for work’. However, the other half of the begging population in Hyderabad, Giri says are those have income sources, in some cases even own lands in villages but venture into begging for the money as they can earn `900 or above, to spend on alcohol or other intoxicants. To tackle them, will require more legal and innovative prevention measures from government, says Giri.