Overage orphans protest eviction from home

.These young men, sitting in dharna near the Old Secretariat, wonder where they can go in such a short-notice when they are not even employed. And when some of them have school and college exams in a weeks time.

Take 22-year-old Pradip Kumar who’s studying at the Delhi Polytechnic, he has an exam on Monday and needs another six months to complete his course. “What will I do now? I’m on back on the streets from where they first picked me up. This eviction notice will ruin my life. All the effort I’ve put in the course will go waste,” he says, almost in tears.

Wahid Khan, 21, has managed to clear his Class XII exam and is looking for a job. Nasir, also 21, who has passed Class X has the same problem. Now they don’t known where to go from the dharna site and what to do next.

The Chief Minister, Sahib Singh Verma, has refused to meet them; the social welfare department refuses to listen to them. In fact, they are baffled why the government bothers to spend so much on rearing them and dumps them when they its need help most. They want the government to at least implement a policy which will help them get jobs. They say, individuals efforts to get jobs seldom bears fruit. “Wherever we go, we are asked to give our parents’ or guarantor’s name. The `home’ is everything we know, but they refuse to sign anything on our behalf. We are not uneducated, nor do we want to rot in orphanages all our lives. We want to work, but nobody gives us job,” says Babiya, 24. His efforts of getting a loan for self-employment was also denied. The government seems to have done little for their rehabilitation.

There are numerous recommendations, which could make the welfare scheme economically viable for both the government and the orphan children, but those gather dust. Instead, they end up in a legal tangle. A few months back the boys filed a public interest litigation in the High Court asking the government to frame a rehabilitation policy. So that they too can get equal employment opportunity. Their case was taken up by lawyers V.P. Sharma and Yogesh Sharma.

The boys claim, they are being evicted because their `home’ is being shifted to Narula near the border, a move they want to stall till the court gives its verdict on the PIL. A majority of the boys seemed to have studied at least up to Class-X; some have passed Class-XII. Others are trained electricians and even computer literate. “But since nobody is ready to be our guarantor, we end up doing odd-jobs with no home of our own. Nobody is ready to rent us a place either,” said Rakesh, 26. ‘