Rehabilitation plan for city beggars underway

The nuisance of begging alongside the notorious traffic jam earned Dhaka a bad repute of being a city of “cars and beggars” - a scenario that prompted authorities to launch a campaign to eradicate professional begging.
“A sample survey on 10,000 street beggars in Dhaka was already carried out and a detailed study was underway as part of a campaign to rehabilitate professional beggars,” Beggar Rehabilitation Cell chief of social welfare ministry Abdul Mabud told the news agency.
He said beggars capable of working would be provided mobile shops, rickshaws, rickshaw-trolleys, sewing machines and money to start small businesses as part of the rehabilitation campaign.
Motivational orientation classes would also be arranged to infuse into them the inspiration to be self-dependent, he added.
His comments came a day after Social Welfare Minister Enamul Hoque Mostofa Shaheed told parliament that work was underway to rehabilitate 10,000 beggars of Dhaka and primarily 2,000 beggars would be rehabilitated at their own hometowns.
Officials familiar with the survey carried out five months ago said it found the majority of the beggars hailing from Mymensingh, Barisal, Jamalpur and Dhaka.
This negates an earlier notion that people from river erosion-prone areas in the northwestern region took begging as a profession in larger numbers.
The ministry conducted the survey under the “Beggar Rehabilitation Project”, dividing Dhaka into 10 zones and preparing a database comprising beggars' pictures and a code number for each of them.
A total 10 non-government organisations were assigned with the duty to carry out the study which divided the beggars into four categories -- autistic, women and children, seasonal and professional.