Under open sky
Kolkata’s homeless seek citizenship
“Jaldi taiar ho jao”, “Get
ready fast... the meeting will start soon,” 50-year-old Gita Devi urges
10-year-old Rinku, her neighbour in a line of makeshift homes along a
railway track in the Nimtolla area of Kolkota.
As
the mid-day sun beats down on Kolkata’s streets, groups of the city’s
homeless are already arriving at Naren Dey Park in Shovabazar, well before
their 2pm meeting is due to start.
The
Pubic Hearing they are attending, organised by the
Griha
Adhikar Manchya alliance of urban
poor in association with ActionAid, is
to help
expose and plug gaps in the Below the Poverty Line
(BPL)
scheme, gaps
through which Gita, Rinku and thousands more are currently falling.
As the crowd swells,
colourful drapes, sarees and bindis dazzle under the glare of the summer
sun, as if defying the daily struggle to make two ends meet.
“We sleep on pavements. Our earnings go on food. But still we are refused
the BPL card,”
says Mahesh Prasad Gupta, a rickshaw puller of Jorasanko area.
Safety net
Under the government’s
public distribution system, families with an income of less than Rs 15,000 a
year are entitled to subsidized food and free education, medical treatment
and legal aid – a lifeline for poor families, but only if they hold a BPL
card.
Amid rising food prices, a
BPL card means the difference between going to bed with a full or an empty
stomach:
BPL card holders can purchase 35 kilograms of grain at
Rs.4.15 per Kg for wheat and Rs.5.65 for rice – three times less than the
market price.
In February,
the Kolkata Municipal Corporation stated that 127,000 people fall in the BPL
category. The problem is, only a tiny fraction of Kolkota’s 67,000 homeless
are on the BPL list.
The names of
the city’s
24,000 rickshaw-pullers are also missing, reports The Calcutta Samaritans.
Not counted
As the BPL list was drawn
up, homeless applicants faced discrimination. In some city wards they were
given no assistance in filling forms, while in others, officials flatly
refused to accept applications from those without a permanent address.
“By the end of April more
than 11,000 homeless people had submitted their registration forms but only
44 people were given a receipt,”
says Surajit Neogi of ActionAid.
“Thankfully many kept
photocopies of their forms so they can pursue their cases. The campaign is
helping to spread such back up measures and motivate more people to demand
their BPL status,”
he adds.
Citizenship denied
Those without proof of
permanent residence or a government-issued identity card are often dubbed
‘illegal immigrants’ by authorities and denied government services.
“We can’t get our kids into schools because we don’t have any address. Nor
are we allowed to sign up for the BPL card. When we are asked for proof of
citizenship we have none,”
says Ashima Nandi, a
vegetable vendor from Rajabajar area.
In an interview with the
Indian Express, ActionAid’s Chittaranjan Mandal asks, “The government claims
to work for the betterment of the destitute but its actions hardly matches
its words. Why is BPL status not given to those who need it the most?”
