Tapasya Kamble & Snehal Bhagwat
Pune
The busy Gopal Krishna Gokhale road popularly known as FC College road is one of the busiest roads in Pune city. As traffic is teeming on the road during busy hours couple of kids are reveling near the Goodluck chowk.
They are swinging with swag holding tight to the aerial roots of the banyan tree. But this merriment is just for a few moments. As soon as the red traffic signal turns on, they pick up their stuff including plastic dustbin bags and a bunch of key chains, and rush to the commuters and try to sell their products. As the green signal glows, they are back to the banyan roots to breathe the fresh air.
Life is not merriment for these innocent kids who must be in school classrooms but are earning livelihood by selling some products, begging, and cleaning vehicles stopping at signals. Education is their right but life has brought them to the streets. UNICEF defines a street child as “anyone under the age of 18 years either lives or works on the street for most of the time”.
Nine-year-old Dashrath and his eight-year-old brother Parbal sell key chains which are not as flashy as the ones in the shops. Not surprisingly, there were hardly any buyers who bought key chains from them.
Ask him “ Do you go to school?” and he answers, “ No. I don’t have a birth certificate to get admission to the school”. Dashrath along with others came to Pune from Madhya Pradesh in search of livelihood. His parents are back home and live in abject poverty with no resources to feed and educate their kids.
While Dashrath is busy talking, his younger brother is bothered about selling keychains. When asked “ What do you want to do when you grow up?”, Prabal has a quick answer, “ I will buy a full bus ticket when I grow up”. His eyes twinkle while he answers.
Living in abject poverty even a dream of development is a distant dream for these kids who continue to grope in dark. As of now mitigating hunger and survival is the only motivation they have.
The road is full of eateries, restaurants, cafes, branded clothing stores, and digital brand showrooms. But these are not part of Dashrath, Prabal, and hundreds of street children’s lives.
Life on Streets
The Pune Municipal Corporation’s survey on street children titled ‘Children in street situations – Life on Pune streets’ reveals that a total of 10,427 children were enumerated across the city. Among surveyed children 58.1 percent are boys, 41.7 percent are girls and 0.3 percent are transgender. About 83 percent (8,550) of the children belonged to street-living families.
Among the street children covered in the survey, about 50 percent (5,207) of children were in the 6 to 14 years age group. As many as 60 percent of surveyed children were not studying.
“The poorest children of different parts of the State of Maharashtra migrated to Pune city in search of job and livelihood. It was surveyed that about 48 percent of children or their families migrated from the districts such as Usmanabad, Latur, Beed, Parbhani, and Solapur in Maharashtra. Almost 82 percent of children or their families migrated in search of job and income” states the published survey.
According to the survey, 33 percent of children were involved in hawking/vending on the streets, 17 percent in begging/used for begging, and 12 percent in construction work.
Hardly seven percent of the children were aware of any NGO or government programs that provide some assistance to street children. Most of the street children hawking or begging could be seen on busy roads.
It is not just from Maharashtra, but from many other States, children come to cities like Pune and Mumbai to work on the streets.
Mitigating Hunger
Just on the other side of the FC road is JM road. It’s 8 pm and there is a queue near Pataleshwar rock-cut caves. Everyone in the queue is looking at the tempo standing on the roadside. The tempo driver then starts distributing silver packets of food wrapped in food-grade plastic. Then in a systematic way people, one by one come and collect their food packets and sit on the footpath there and have their meal.
These people are beggars, cleaners, and ragpickers including children like Dashrath and Prabal. They don’t earn sufficient money to buy their meal for the day and these food packages provided by Venkys are the only option.
When the tempo driver distributes the packets, an employee from Venkys stands there with his tablet recording and keeping a check that the food is reaching the right hands.
Also, keeping the environment in mind, they also kept a dustbin bag near the tempo so that the leftovers and packets are properly disposed without harming the environment.
Darkness hovers all around and neon signboards and street lights start illuminating the streets in the locality. Another day has passed but for street kids sunrise is not in sight.
Protection of Street Children
According to the union Ministry of Women and Child Development as per Section 2 (14) (ii) of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (JJ Act), a child who is found working in contravention of labour laws for the time being in force or is found begging, or living on the street is included as a “child in need of care and protection”, among others.
The Ministry implements a centrally sponsored scheme, named Child Protection Services (CPS) scheme, under Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Schemes for supporting children in difficult circumstances including street children, as envisaged under JJ Act.
“ Under the scheme institutional care is provided through Child Care Institutions (CCIs), as a rehabilitative measure. The programmes and activities in CCIs inter-alia include age-appropriate education, access to vocational training, recreation, health care, counseling etc. The primary responsibility of execution of the Act and implementation of Scheme rests with the State/UTs” the Ministry stated in 2021 in Rajya Sabha.
(Tapasya Kamble & Snehal Bhagwat are SYBAJMC students at Vishwakarma University. Pictures by Tapasya Kamble)
We’ll written…good choice of words …
People would come to know how life works in this part of the world …..
Very thoughtful and we’ll written…way to go gals…All the best.
Good job. Thank you so a sneak peak into the life of these children. I hope this story reaches a larger audience. All the best for you future stories.
Such a great piece! Amazing work.
a great story, very informative and eye opening. hope to read more soon.
very very thoughtful and all the best for your future stories 😇we are waiting for your future stories.
Great work !
I hope this world comes together and decides on these issues asap and we no longer get to read these stories on these topics at one point of time …
Very nicely written and on point!
Very nice
Wow.. Such a great efforts.. Very keen observation… Very nice presentation…good start. All the best for future.
So proud of you ❤️❤️❤️ Article makes you feel you are in Pune seeing life go so fast. It transports you … journalism is in safe hands … just not the left I hope … lmao
So articulated and well written. Looking forward to reading more writeups from you, Tapasya. All the best and I am so proud of you!
Something that the people need to know. Really looking forward to more such amazing and informative stories. Well done, keep up the good work. Kudos👍🏻
I would like to thank you for the efforts youve put in writing this blog. I really hope to see the same high-grade blog posts from you in the future as well. In fact, your creative writing abilities has encouraged me to get my own website now 😉
Very well written story…keep writing❤️✨
Absolutely an article worth forwarding!
This step towards overcoming the ignorance is worth the praise….
All the best girls for your future endeavours.