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BEGGERS TURNOVER 42 CRORE
By VIJAY MENON
It seems the Malayalis are too generous. People in the three
corporations - Thiruvananthaparuam, Kochi and Kozhikode - give alms of
over Rs 42 crore a year.
A battalion of 3,000 beggars, majority of them children, collect over
Rs 11 lakh from these cities every day.
We hardly come across any Malayali among them. They are mainly from
from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and other
northern states.
Kochi, the commercial hub of the state, forks out Rs 6 lakh daily for
1,500 beggars. It means the people in the city will have to raise Rs
22 crore annually for giving alms.
In the capital city, nearly 800 beggars garner Rs 2 lakh every day and
it works out to Rs 9 crore a year. Kozhikode, the Malabar metro, gives
Rs 3 lakh to beggars every, which comes to over Rs 11 crore annually.
The informal studies conducted by 'Child Line' officials have found
that people in the Malabar area are the most generous where a beggar
gets Rs 500 to 600 daily, while it is Rs 400 to 450 in Kochi.
The people in Thiruvananthaparuam are not so liberal where a beggar's
daily `income' is between Rs 250 and Rs 300.
The thriving begging 'business' brings some windfalls to the economy
of the pocket in Kochi and Kozhikode cities where beggars stay on
daily rent. Sex, drug and hooch give an additional push to the income
of these pockets.
The beggars doing 'business' in the capital city come by the morning
train from nearby areas of Tamil Nadu and return on the evening train
after the day's `work.'
For the majority of them, it is a family business. Grandpas, grannies,
husband and wife and children are in the `business'.
Jose Koyickal, who is conducting an in-depth research on child
beggars for his doctoral thesis, observers that large scale migration
of workers from the neighbouring states to Kerala for work, like
digging trenches for optical fibre cables, and the affluence of the
state have resulted in the sudden spurt of beggars in the state in the
last couple of years.
While the able-bodied men and women toil at work site, the old people
and children beg. The womenfolk give a helping hand to their children,
the main earners, on their off-days.
It seems that there is no immediate relief for Malayalis from the
beggar menace as authorities are not so keen to tackle the issue.
But we can stop this without the assistance of any government agency.
Say an assertive "no" when the beggars hold out their hands.
Then we can not only prevent the massive flow of money from the state
to the neighbouring states, but give a new life to child beggars.
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