The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Common sight at crossroads CIVIC SCENE

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 29, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Common sight at crossroads CIVIC SCENE

Staff Reporter

— Photo: K.R. Deepak

PERENNIAL PROBLEM: A boy begging at a traffic signal in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday.

VISAKHAPATNAM: Begging is a social problem that stares one in the face every day. At almost all important traffic junctions and bus stops, children, the aged, the disabled and the diseased draw the attention of people seeking some help. The practice is a major obstacle at traffic signals.

Those seeking help have captive persons waiting for the signal to turn green. For the city populace racing with time and impatiently waiting, the attempts to draw attention are a bother though they sometimes prick the conscience. It hinders their smooth movement ahead what with the density of traffic high at junctions. It puts the people begging also in harm’s way what with their scrambling through rows of waiting vehicles.

Boys/girls begging with a younger one of a monkey are a common sight on the Beach Road too. Sometime ago, the Child Welfare Committee and the Women and Child Welfare Department have announced that they would take firm steps to stop the practice. The decision was an offshoot of the allegations that children were also used for begging, sometimes resorting to cruel practices. But the practice continues.

The children/adults that live on begging should be rehabilitated in homes meant for them. The financial cost of increasing such facilities and caring for them might not be significant when compared to the cost society pays for leaving them to their fate.

As a forward-looking society it’s incumbent upon its citizens.

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