Guwahati: The Kamrup (Metro) district administration has begun identifying ragpickers and street dwellers using a variety of approaches, including awareness camps, in order to implement safety measures in the face of the Omicron menace.
"We are always exerting effort to identify ragpickers and street dwellers to register them in the official database through the E-SHRAM portal," said district deputy commissioner Pallav Gopal Jha.
According to a study, the number of ragpickers in our country is believed to be approximately 4 million, with a contribution of around Rs 3,200 crore to our economy. Guwahati, Assam, has between 15,000 and 20,000 ragpickers. The majority of them reside on sidewalks, train platforms, or bus stops.
The district government took the initiative earlier this year to conduct Covid-19 tests and distribute immunizations to the city's rag pickers and street residents.
According to the limited data available, India still has about 1.7 million homeless persons, 938,384 of whom live in cities. Because their identities are not documented anywhere in the official records, there is essentially no data available on the government website, particularly on the number of youngsters living on the streets.
Save the Children, an NGO that advocates for the rights of homeless children, estimates that 50.5 per cent of India's street children are illiterate. 87 per cent make a living, including 20 per cent working as rag pickers, 15.8% as street sellers, and 15 per cent begging at traffic lights.
To restrict people's movement, states have already implemented weekend lockdowns and night curfews. While the limits affect the entire population of the country, the homeless, particularly children, bear the brunt of the consequences. "Lockdowns and social exclusion have unseen consequences for street children who can't afford the financial cost of forced immobility because their income is based on illegal street activities."
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