4 new homes for homeless

The city’s destitutes have something to cheer about as the government has cleared the decks to build four ‘new’ permanent all-weather shelters in the national capital.

The Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board, the city government body that looks after shelter homes, has procured four sites from DDA at the cost of Rs 6.60 crore to set up these 24x7 facilities in Dwarka, Ghazipur, Rohini sector 5 and Kakrola.

The shelters will come up as per the ‘Scheme of Shelter for Urban Homeless’ under the National Urban Livelihoods Mission, said Kamal Malhotra, DUSIB director (Shelters homes).


“These structures will be open to accommodate the homeless 24x7, throughout the year. They will have basic amenities such as water, electricity and bathrooms.

The shelter homes will also have a proper sewerage system to maintain hygienic conditions in and around them. These homes will also be disabled-friendly,” said Malhotra.

The Shelter for Urban Homeless guidelines said that each home should cater to between 50 and 100 destitutes.

The DUSIB said that the handing over of the land will be done within a week’s time. “Our engineers will visit the sites and prepare the building plan,” said Malhotra.

According to Scheme of Shelter for Urban Homeless, permanent shelters should be built of concrete and durable weather proof material.

“The location should be close to homeless work sites as far as practicable. The shelters to be located close to the areas where the poorest congregate like railway stations, bus depots, terminals, markets and wholesale mandis,” read the guidelines.

The official with the DUSIB said that the plots of land have been procured keeping in view the destitutes work sites.

The DUSIB said that it requires 1,75,000 sq feet land to convert the existing temporary shelter homes into permanent ones.

According to DUSIB, there are 181 shelter homes in Delhi, of which 64 are already permanent facilities.