Rourkela: Even as Rourkela has been accorded Smart City tag and crores of rupees are being sanctioned for its beautification, beggary has proved to be a stumbling block in this direction, a report said.
The Smart City administration has failed to make the city free of beggars. Scores of people begging for alms can be seen in most parts, especially at temples in the heart of the city and the outskirts.
A self-employment programme for these people would have been a solution to the rising number of beggars in the city, observed a group of conscious citizens.
“Rourkela is known as an industrial city across the country. It is also a city with a large number of educationists. However, its image has taken a beating because many women and kids can be seen begging for alms along the main thoroughfares,” said Subas Lenka, an educationist.
Both the district and Smart City administration should devise a programme to get rid of the problem.
According to senior lecture Umakanta Panda of Vedvyas Sanskrit College, the then Chancellor and Governor Rameswar Thakur along with vice-chancellor of Shree Jagannath Sanskrit University of Puri spearheaded a programme called ‘Gyanaloka’ to bring the children of beggars to the mainstream of society by educating them.
Dr Panda also surveyed Vedvyas and surrounding areas and identified 88 such children. However, the guardians were reluctant to make their children educated. The reason: the children added to the family income.
This prompted Dr Panda and then sub-collector Mahendra Kumar Patnaik to submit a proposal to the government for setting up an evening school so that the children can earn at day time and learn in the evening. At the beginning, the children were taught on temple premises and vacant space of colleges and offered food. At least 20 students were brought back to the mainstream of society.
However, the proposed evening school could not become a reality and the drive came to an end.
Meanwhile, locals demanded launching of vocational programmes for people involved in beggary to make them self-employed so that the city would become free of beggars.