Protect lives of poor people in winter: SC to authorities

The Supreme Court today asked the authorities to carry out its order in “letter and spirit” to “preserve and protect” the lives of homeless people by providing them roofs with all necessary facilities, especially in north India which is in the grip of intense cold waves. “The whole endeavour should be to preserve and protect the human life,” a bench of justices Dalveer Bhandari and Dipak Misra said while asking governments of the northern states to implement its order “without loss of time”. It said not only the cold waves but the unusual snowfall in some states like Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab too have added to the trouble for the homeless and destitute to whom night shelters of permanent or temporary nature must be made available. [caption id=“attachment_183943” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Homeless children use blankets to protect themselves from the cold under a flyover in New Delhi. Reuters”]  [/caption] “Permanent structure will take time and winter is intense but relief has to be provided. Please ensure people’s life is preserved and protected by erecting at least temporary structure as night shelters,” the bench said. The remarks were made by the bench while it was perusing the report of the inspection of the night shelters in the national capital,  carried by the court-appointed commissioners and officials of the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) between January 9 to 12. The court asked the Joint Apex Advisory Committee, comprising the members of the NGOs and Delhi government officials, looking into the issues related to homeless people, to take action on the basis of the report to “ensure” that relief reaches helpless people “without any loss of time”. The bench was told by Additional Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran that there are night shelters which are not fully occupied and advertisement would be made through both the electronic and print media so that homeless people can make night stay at those centres. The apex court, which had expressed its anguish on January 9 over reports about scores of people sleeping on pavements outside the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), was told today that the necessary action has been taken and an area measuring 600 square feet has been allocated in the hospital to build a night shelter which has already been made operational in a temporary structure. The bench was apprised by the Additional Solicitor General that the place was earlier earmarked for the upkeep of generic medicine. He said an NGO has also been allocated a place in AIIMS to run the shelter. While dealing with the issue of night shelters in hospitals, the bench said “infrastructure in hospitals are hardly enough to meet the needs of people visiting there”. “Look at AIIMS, we require six or seven more AIIMS. Not only the people from Delhi visit AIIMS but people from all over the country. Some are so poor that they can’t even afford dharamshalas. Their lives too are to be preserved and protected,” the bench said. It noted a report by the civil society which estimated that there are around one lakh homeless people in Delhi and there was a need of additional 478 night shelters, besides the need to upgrade the facilities of toilets, bathrooms, kitchens and food in the existing ones. The report said there was a need for the authorities to reach areas like Jama Masjid in the walled city and Bangla Sahib Gurudwara in central Delhi where the concentration of homeless people are high and proper medical attention is to be given to the old and the ailing ones some of whom are not in a proper mental health. Some of the states, which are in the grip of intense cold wave, filed their affidavits on various steps take by them for providing night shelters. PTI