Street children and liquor shops in Delhi

Street children and liquor shops in delhi
UNICEF estimates that there are more than four lakhs street children are in India’s five major cities including Delhi. Delhi alone is a home of more than one lakh children.
As soon as sun bade adieu to the world, liquor shops all around Delhi come alive with people thronging their like honey bees. Zoom there a little more and a good number of kids can be located roaming from person to person with a mug and ice cubes. These kids serve as bartenders for these people and in return get some money and lot of abuses and beatings.
Abdul, 12 collects bear bottles apart from serving chilled bear to the people there. He sells these bottles at a rate of rs 3 each.
“ sab karna padta hai bhaiya, maa gharon me kaam karti hai tab ja kar guzara hota hai”( Have to do everything to meet ends. Mother works as a maid), says abdul. This young fatherless boy does not go to school because there is one to earn.
New ashok nagar, which borders Noida, has turned into a big liquor market. People in large numbers collect here to get wine and bear. Wine is less costly in Delhi. People after drinking fight here, hurl abuses at these street kids and at passerby. Delhi police has its presence near the liquor shop but seems to have no eyes to watch all this happening right in front of their eyes.
Sarita vihar, another posh colony of Delhi, where many such kids can be seen collecting bear bottles and serving bear to the drinkers. Many of these kids drink wine and bear people leave in their mugs. Many of them are addicted to correction fluid.
In Delhi there are large number of ngos are working for the welfare of these kids. Many ngo websites are full of glorifying stories. What one needs is to do is to just go out, one can find children doing all this at every liquor shop. Begging by these street children at every traffic light is a bare truth every person living in Delhi knows.
Though some significant work has been done for the welfare of street children but that is not enough. Not only ngos but public participation is needed if we wish to see our nation out of this curse. Common wealth games are knocking at our door.
Delhi government should give heed to this issue on urgent basis if it wishes to save its face in front of the international community.It is estimated that there are 314,700 street children in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Kanpur, Bangalore and Hyderabad combined and about 100,000 in Delhi. Factors which have given rise to the increase in number of street children in India include poverty, family break-ups, armed conflicts, natural and man-made disasters, lack of employment opportunities and the attraction of cities.