New Delhi: The Delhi government is planning nutritional meals and child experts at the Boarding School they are working on for homeless children to study and live in. "Most of the children who will be attending come from troubled backgrounds and have trouble with basic necessities that need to be addressed," a junior official said.
Experts will assist the management to navigate issues with adolescent children too. " Some teenagers go astray due to lack of guidance and we hope to bring them back and guide them," he added.
A senior official said, "The details of the programme are yet to be worked out but it will look at the all-round requirements of a young child. Usually schools only deal with the education aspect but the boarding school will focus on the overall wellbeing — both emotional and mental," adding that the Education Department would be working with the Social Welfare and Women and Child Development departments on this.
While announcing the budget, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had said that Rs 10 crore will be used for the establishment of the school however the senior official added that more "help" will be provided if needed.
"Through this initiative the government is hoping to guide young children and provide them with food and education so that there are fewer young beggars on the road. Some of the children that have been found in our survey are homeless and have no place to go while others have run away from their families," the junior official said.
Initial surveys have shown that the challenge will be in convincing children living with their families on the streets.
"For such families the child also brings in revenue and when we asked them if they would send their child to boarding some of them refused as that affects their income," the junior
official said.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had stated that the previous government's have not taken an interest in them as they are not "vote banks" and that efforts in this area had not yielded the expected results due to a lack of personal touch.