Whatever little counting Rahul Thorat*, 13, learnt at school is now helping him fetch the right price for the scrap he collects every morning. “I can count up to 100,” he said, beaming with pride. He clutches over his thin shoulder a jute bag brimming with crushed plastic bottles and strapped bundles of newspapers — and the responsibility to feed his parents.
While his father, who’s disabled, used to find work at a construction site every day before the lockdown kicked in, his mother, suffering from a mental illness, stays home and can barely make out why the city shut in one fell swoop.
Burden on children
Mr. Throat now heads out for ragpicking at 10 a.m. each day, when his school, now shut owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, used to begin earlier. “I have to support my family,” said Mr. Thorat, a Class II student, glass clinking in his bag as moves. Besides the ration procured through the public distribution system, the ₹100-150 he makes every day by salvaging scrap until 6 p.m. is helping keep the family alive at their tin shed dwelling in TT Nagar here.
Like him, several children from poor families in Bhopal have returned to ragpicking or begging, as schools remain shut and the prolonged lockdown has wrecked families financially. “We had identified 15 children living in the sheds and gleaned them from such activities earlier. But now invariably all of them are back at it,” said Archana Sahay, Director, Aarambh, a child rights non-government organisation (NGO). Section 76 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, prohibits employment of children for begging.
Under the Khushal Naunihal initiative of the Bhopal division last year, 175 child beggars and 350 child ragpickers at eight spots in the city were identified with the help of NGOs, who rescued them, understood the needs of their families, and made sure they joined schools. “Many parents endorsed their children’s begging. The Child Welfare Committee directed cases be registered against them,” said Ms. Sahay. The interest such children were slowly developing towards schooling had been hit as schools remained shut, she added.
At the tin sheds, Kamala Kumari* is worried her eight-year-old daughter, who she believes is a quick learner, spent more time begging in the New Market area now than reading the books she had bought for ₹800 for the new academic session. “I tell her repeatedly not to go there. But she refuses to listen, and returns with samosa s and poha along with her friends,” said Ms. Kumari, mother of five, a domestic help.
‘Every penny counts’
For Ramu Solanki*, 30, collecting scrap house-to-house alone like before now isn’t enough to feed his six children, wife and mother as scrap prices have crashed after the lockdown. While earlier, a kilo of iron scrap sold for ₹21, the price has dropped to ₹15 per kg now. So his seven-year-old daughter, who regularly attended Class I, heads in a different direction along with her mother for ragpicking. “Even the ₹20-30 my daughter earns is crucial. Every penny counts. Now that the school is shut, she sits idle at home anyway,” said Mr. Solanki.
The family had admitted her to a school a year ago, so that she didn’t have to salvage in the filth. “But our condition has turned worse now, there is no other option,” said Mr. Solanki, who hoped for his daughter to become a policewoman and is worried his earnings might crash again as Bhopal will be under lockdown for 10 days from July 24.
“We have taken up the issue of children returning to ragpicking and begging with the administration. There needs to be a contingency plan for such families during the pandemic,” said Rakhi Raghuwanshi of Uday Samajik Vikas Sansthan, an NGO.
Meanwhile, District Education Officer Nitin Saxena told The Hindu that the administration had not yet come across such cases. “However, we will look into the issue raised and help resolve it.”
*names changed
