Since Monday, 24 bodies found in city

NGO compiles death toll, 80 pc unidentified bodies are of homeless people

With two homeless men shivering to death in north Delhi’s Chandni Chowk area on Thursday, in all 24 unidentified bodies have been found across the city since Monday, according to the figures compiled by an NGO.

About 80 per cent of the unidentified bodies are of the homeless people, claim NGOs working for destitutes.

Both men, aged between 40 and 45, were found dead in the open, just 300 to 400 metre from a shelter home on Thursday.

There are some 52 shelter homes in north Delhi’s Chandni Chowk, said Sunil Kumar Aledia founder of Centre for Holistic Development.

On Wednesday, two unidentified bodies were found in Kashmere Gate and Burari.
So far, 69 unidentified bodies have been found in December, said the NGO on the basis of data procured from Zonal Integrated Police Network.

While launching an app, ‘Rain Basera’, to relocate homeless people to nearest shelter homes, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal urged Delhiites to post the pictures of the destitutes on the app so that they could be shifted to shelter homes and saved from succumbing to harsh weather conditions.

“13 homeless rescued n brought to nite shelters on the basis of photos sent by people thro App. Together lets ensure no one dies of winter,” Kejriwal had tweeted earlier this week.

The NGOs working for the cause said more tent shelters are required to accommodate the homeless population.

“Last year, the city government’s body Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board had put up tent shelters in huge numbers. But this year, many areas need more shelters to save the homeless population from the cold,” said Aledia.

But officials with the DUSIB said the department has already set up 40 tent shelters apart from the 198 functional night shelters across the city.

A total of 19,000 homeless people can be accommodated in these shelters.
The department has also arranged over 30,000 blankets to be distributed in these night shelters, and kept over 25,000 blankets as back up.

The shelter homes have been also given some 14,000 durries and over 10,000 mats.
An official said the department has set up a 24-hour control room at the DUSIB office in ITO to receive complaints about the homeless people.

The control room can be contacted on helpline numbers 011-23378789, 8527898295 and 8527898296.

According to NGOs, there are over 1.5 lakh homeless people across the city, while the Delhi government survey in 2014 managed to locate just over 16,000 destitutes on the streets in Delhi.