Date:04/10/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/10/04/stories/2004100409490400.htm

New Delhi

Child care centre closure decried

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, OCT. 3. Activists are up in arms against the closure of the "drop-in centre'' at Hanuman Mandir near Connaught Place housing more than 50 children in need of care. While 25 of these children belonged to the non-government organisation Prayas, the other 25 belonged to the Salaam Balak Trust. The shelter was being run by the Joint Apex Committee which was formed a couple of years ago to find ways and means to create facilities for the poor and the homeless. It was headed by the Additional Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and senior New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) officials were, among others, its members.

It was in the year 2002 that Dr. Rashmi Singh, the Director (Welfare) of NDMC, had given permission to run the shelter. According to activists of Prayas and Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan, the NDMC staff barged into the shelter on Friday last and reportedly forcibly took away blankets, books, items for vocational training and television.

"We consider this as a serious inhuman act and demand action against the NDMC,'' said a complaint filed by the activists with the Station House Officer of Connaught Place police station.

Ironically, this action by the NDMC comes at a time when slum and street children from across the country have converged in the Capital demanding the "right to shelter'' and the "right to housing''. A memorandum prepared by the members of the National Forum for Housing Rights has demanded that the Governments should find ways and means to house destitute children in their community centres and find ways to rehabilitate them.