Arvind Singh is not a beggar, but he chooses to be seen as one.
For three months now, the 60-year-old man with sunken cheeks and arched eyebrows has been the only ‘beggar’ residing at the Delhi government’s shelter for 1,525 beggars at Lampur, Narela. There are nearly 70 rooms here, but except for Singh’s, the others are locked.
Singh is spending sleepless nights these days. He paces his 20x20 room because he is just nine days away from release, after two years of living ‘too comfortably’ at the shelter.
He has three ‘personal’ care takers who are like his friends, and enjoys benefits like lodging, free food, medical treatment, clothes and toiletries. His room has a desert cooler, television set, single-bed and a small ‘temple’ with idols kept on his steel trunk. He gets a kilo of milk every day and fruits as snacks.
The Delhi government pumps in Rs. 5 crore a year to run the Lampur facility, located in an industrial area on north Delhi’s outskirts. The funds go mostly to pay staff salaries and for kitchen expenses. There are 11 staffers.
No beggar sent
Records say no beggar has been sent to Lampur in 2016. The last time the shelter was used close to capacity was during the Commonwealth Games, when the then Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, carried out a cleanliness drive.
Begging is an offence in Delhi under the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959, (the Act extends to the capital) and beggars are frequently picked up by police and social welfare officials. They are produced before the Magistrate at Kingsway Camp.
“But they are left off due to lack of evidence, and also since no rehabilitation program exists. Their livelihood is hit if they are remanded,” said a senior social welfare department official.
The Magistrate had ordered Arvind Singh also to be let off. “But I requested that I be sent to Lampur,” said Singh, “and he took pity.”
He first arrived in January 2014, but after his release, it took him six months to be caught again. “I plan to spend the rest of my life here,” says Singh.
But he isn’t the only one. The superintendent of the facility, Shiv Narayan Singh says Rajesh, another beggar, lived there for almost 16 years. “His father was with the Meerut police and yet he would keep coming back,” he recalls. The single-storied Lampur home on 22 acres with five unkempt gardens shares the compound with the Foreigners Detention Centre housing around 40 foreigners, mostly Africans and Pakistanis.
Singh’s experience as a cook at dhabas and weddings came in handy at the poorly staffed home kitchen, which provides meals five times a day to the detention centre.
The home has a drug de-addiction centre, and till six months ago, provided training classes in broom-making, electrical, carpentry and car repair, for which the beggars got up to Rs. 50 per class. “But they were suspended in February as there were few takers,” the superintendent said. Last year, Arvind Singh earned Rs. 12,500 for the classes, but will not get any money this time.
Even now, Singh plans to do an encore. He says he knows where beggars are most likely to be caught. “I will play the role and get caught again,” he says. For this, he has a separate set of dirty clothes.
