PATNA: Raju Prasad is a beggar with a difference. Raju Prasad, (40), a resident of Bihar’s Bettiah town in West Champaran district, can be heard asking people to pay him digitally if they don’t have chutta paise (change in coins).
“If you don’t have change in coins, don’t worry. You can pay me through eWallet. Now I avail the facility of digital payment,” Prasad can be heard telling the passer-by who avoid him payment on the pretext of having no chutta paise.
On Friday, he received Rs 57 in his eWallet from begging, apart from Rs 40 in coins. Prasad has been begging in the vicinity of Bettiah railway station since he was 10. An ardent supporter of PM Narendra Modi’s ‘Digital India’ campaign, Prasad opened a bank account recently to avail the facility of digital payment.
“Though I had my Aadhaar Card, I didn’t have PAN card, which delayed the process to open bank account. Now I avail the facility of digital payment despite being a beggar,” he boasted. Awadhesh Tiwari, a resident of Bettiah town, said Raju Prasad’s father Prabhunath Prasad lived with his family in Bettiah town. After the death of only bread winner of the family, his son Raju Prasad started begging at the railway station.
“He has been doing it for the last three decades. Being a bit lazy, he adopted begging as his source of livelihood and people used to support him,” Tiwari, a retired public servant said. Earlier, he used to get free food from the pantry car of trains stopping at Bettiah but now he has to buy meals from a roadside dhaba. Prasad spends night at railway platform.