HC lauds Centre's scheme for homeless

The Delhi High Court today lauded the Centre's "more than adequate" and "laudable" scheme for providing permanent, round the clock shelters throughout the year for the homeless in the city and said that it requires to be implemented.
A bench of Acting Chief Justice B D Ahmed and Justice S Mridul was informed about the scheme by Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board's (DUSIB) CEO whose presence had been sought by the court on the last date of hearing to assist it in coming out with "better and humane" shelters.
The DUSIB CEO, Amarnath, said that under the December 13, 2013 scheme of Shelter for Urban Homeless (SUH), each person is to be provided a minimum space of 50 square feet apart from permanent shelters having basic infrastructure facilities like water supply, sanitation, safety and security.

"We find the scheme of Government of India is more than adequate and very laudable. However, what is required is that the objective and points under the scheme be implemented," the court said.
The bench, however, was not pleased that no one knew about the 2013 scheme till date saying "nobody is informed, so the poor people sleeping on footpaths do not even know what are their rights".
It also sought an affidavit from DUSIB indicating status of implementation of the scheme as well as the time frame for it and any help required from any other agency.
On the issue of alleged harassment of homeless drug addicts by police officials, instead of taking them to de-addiction centres, the court sought a status report from the agency on how many such centres are being run in the city by the state government and NGOs and criteria for admission there.

The court also sought a status report from the police on whether the fingerprinting of homeless under the agency's newly acquired computerised remote identification of suspects (CRIS) system is in conformity with the Identification of Prisoners Act, 1920.