Capital’s biting cold killed eight thousand homeless in past 10 years
Biting cold conditions have killed over eight thousand homeless in the national capital in the last decade. The staggering number is a scary reminder that the onset of winter is life threatening for hundreds of people who lack homes in Delhi. Conservative estimates put the population of homeless, who are exposed to extreme weather conditions in Delhi, to around 2 lakh.
On an average, the lack of a formal housing structure kills 3,300 people in Delhi annually as recorded by the zonal integrated police network.
According to the Centre for Holistic Development, 2,682 homeless people lost their lives due to cold conditions in the city from the year 2004 to 2015 in the month of December alone. A total of 2,959 have lost their lives in January during the period and 2,452 in the month of February. Describing death due to cold, Dr K.K. Aggarwal, national president (elect), Indian Medical Association, said that people exposed to cold conditions succumb to worsened cases of hypothermia.
“Hypothermia has different stages. Once the shivering stops, it leads to a person’s death,” he said. The alarming number of deaths has prompted an innovative campaign, Feel the Footpath, which will be launched when the temperature dips. The campaign, an effort to feel and understand the suffering of the homeless, will invite the people to spend a night on the footpath. Initiated by a Delhi based NGO Marham, the campaign is an effort to reach out to people and connect the mainstream society to the issue.
“The campaign is an attempt to make the society experience the pain of the footpath dwellers first hand. The number of people without homes is so large that unless the mainstream society is connected, it cannot be solved,” he said. The first part of the campaign, which was launched two days before the World Homeless Day (October 10), witnessed participation by 200 people. The participants faced several problems ranging from unavailability of washrooms to risk to lives every time a heavy vehicle passed by on the street,” Irtiza Quraishi, president of Marham, said. He added that as the concentration of the homeless in the city is majorly in areas such as Connaught Place, old Delhi, Kashmere Gate and railway stations, it was decided to kick off the campaign from Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg. The second phase of the campaign will be launched in the first week of January, the venue for which is yet to be decided. To keep the conditions real, participants will be provided wheat bags to sleep on and they will be allowed to come with their own blankets, if required.
