NEW DELHI, November 30: Spotted at every crossing, their face car windows, their hands spread out, child beggars in the city are considered a menace. They are everywhere, from road intersections to the railway stations and bus-stops. And the last few years have witnessed a substantial increase in the number of child beggars in the Capital.In response, the Juvenile Welfare Board (JWB) has set a four-month deadline to rehabilitate all child beggars in the city. By their schedule, all child beggars in the city should be rehabilitated by March 1999. In an order dated November 13, the JWB has issued directions to the police and five nodal agencies involved in child welfare (Salam Balak Trust, Butterflies, Don Bosco Aashralaya, Delhi Brotherhood and Prayas), to pick up child beggars from across the city and produce them before the Board.Highlighting the lack of concern about this social problem, the Juvenile Welfare Board says: ``The general public is indifferent and the NGOs are not very serious. The price of this indifference and inaction will be very high, in the form of increase in crime and delinquency among neglected children''.Accordingly, citizens have been directed to intimate the police (on 100 or 1098) about child beggars in their vicinity. Coming down heavily on non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the Board has directed them to produce the children before them for proper inquiries. The order states: ``We have a report that NGOs are keeping lost children in their children's homes and parents of these children are going from pillar to post in search of their kids. The police is also warned not to hand over lost or abandoned children to the NGOs without proper orders from the JWB.''The government is apparently maintaining a list of all the children placed in juvenile homes in the city, but according to Board members the NGOs maintain no such list.Calling for a coordinated effort to ensure that the deadline is met, the Board has asked all the NGOs dealing in child welfare to interact with probationary officers and other officials working in juvenile homes to acquire basic training in the handling of juveniles in distress. Explaining the requirement, the order says: ``Otherwise the funds advanced by the government to these NGO's will not only be a wasteful expenditure but will place the children in difficulty''.The Delhi government and the Directorate of Social Welfare have also been asked to furnish a list of all NGOs dealing in child welfare to the Juvenile Welfare Board and arrange a training programme for NGOs.
