Are they really beggars or make-believe beggars or simply miscreants occupying the benches around Margao Municipal Council garden day in and night?
This question has come to the fore after petty fights and scuffles between these groups occupying the MMC garden benches and footpaths have literally become the order of the day for want of action from the police, MMC and the district administration.
Locals say not a single day passes by without petty fights and scuffles on the MMC garden footpath, which was once the favourite place for Madgavkars to spend their evening leisure time.
Neither the District Collector Ajit Roy has initiated any steps to house these persons in government-owned premises nor has the district police chief Pankaj Kumar Singh and the Margao police station in-charge, PI Sachin Narvekar, ensured that these people are sheltered in a home as per the law.
Madgavkars have been demanding that the MMC garden should be made free of these people.
Incidentally, Leader of Opposition and Margao MLA Digambar Kamat had made a forceful plea to the Collector to start an exercise to round up all the homeless and beggars and house them in a shelter home after two dead beggars were found Covid positive.
Though then Margao Sub-divisional Magistrate, Vishal Kundaikar, had identified Nehru Stadium, Fatorda, to house the homeless and beggars, the ground reality has not changed for any better.
Women’s rights activist, Auda Viegas, has demanded that the administration clean the city of “make-believe” beggars crowding the city streets. She pointed out that not all the migrants and homeless found on the MMC garden footpath or in the city are beggars, saying many of them are fake, adding to various anti-social activities under the very nose of the authorities.
She said a drive to rehabilitate them in shelter homes could help.
