Community role essential to rehabilitate tramps

Community role essential to rehabilitate tramps
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: When garden space beneath flyovers becoming a abode for tramps and the homeless, it becomes essential for the society to rehabilitate these people. Social experts have also suggested that these people have the potential to be trained and used as either garden workers or painters. But, the real picture is that flyovers belong to all the lonely people.

The former Chief Secretary of Karnataka A. Ravindra told this website’s newspaper that it was essential to look at this situation from two angles, one a humanitarian cause and the other a social concern.

‘‘It is a fact that homeless people are sleeping under the canopy of flyovers, but the social challenge to ordinary citizens will be to rehabilitate them. There are street children and beggars who frequent these places. The Women and Child Welfare Department has to implement some of its schemes to relieve these people of their woes,’’ he said.

Ravindra added that many of these children were talented and could be relocated to schools.

‘‘Children have so much potential, we should not ignore them and leave them to the horrors of the street. The public should initiate some action along with a few NGOs on providing education to these runaways. Flyovers can be monitored by any public body such as the Bangalore City Corporation. It is easier for them to relocate children,’’ he said.

‘‘Flyovers are an integral part of the development of the city. Spaces below the flyover must be converted in to gardens. This must be a speedy process. Therefore urban communities must work with their local bodies to find a place for these tramps,’’ Ravindra said.