Bhubaneswar: The state government has now started the process of making Odisha ‘beggar-free’ and reported to have started the process of counseling the beggars for joining the workforce in the state and give up begging.
The state department of Social Securities and Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (SSEPD) has now completed the process of surveying the beggars in the state capital and other parts of the state and about to the start the process of counseling them for get themselves into the productive economic force of the state.
The department is likely to start the process of Group and Individual Counseling for them to persuade them to join different trades, businesses and get trained for self employment this week. As per the process, the department post survey will counsel the beneficiaries, do their trait analysis to know which type of training to give, training them through trained trainers at government institutes free of cost and later providing them incentives in kind to be self dependent.
The Block Level Social Security Officers are likely to be the incharge for the implementation and monitoring of the beggars post giving training and incentives to start their small scale business. With the association of other financial institutions, NGOs, development bodies and other agencies, the beneficiaries would also be trained on handling their bank accounts, seeing small scale business, knowledge to start small scale, low cost business among others.
Some districts like Sambalpur and others are already said to have completed the whole process and trained around 37 beggars to make them self dependent. The state government has also allegedly told them that if they despite the provision of free training and assistance continue to beg , which is illegal would be deprived of the benefits of some of the government schemes. The government has also planned that those who are unable to take up training and employment like physically challenged, very old and mentally unstable people would be provided with night shelters and other incentives.
SSEPD Department Secretary Niten Chandra told Orissa POST that the department has plans to make the state beggar-free by ensuring they are properly rehabilitated and trained to become self dependent.
PNN