21,000 Homeless People In The State, 11,915 in Mumbai: BMC Survey

In a recent survey by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) it was shared that there are 21,000 homeless people in Maharashtra and out of this 11,915 are in Mumbai. However, this figure has not gone too well with NGOs as they find this figure to be very speculative. The reason being, in the last survey (that was conducted in 2011), it was shared that there were 57,415 homeless people in Mumbai alone. 

Brijesh Arya from Homeless Collective commenting on this in a leading daily said that as there is a huge difference between the number of homeless people in the census of 2011 and in the latest survey.  He even went on to add that this survey may not have been carried out the way it should have been. They need to discuss the matter with the government. Their only aim is to give shelters to homeless people and these numbers are useful to know the exact homeless population. 

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This survey was conducted by a Hyderabad based firm VMax. According to the survey, the following are the number of homeless people in South Mumbai: 

Following are the number of homeless people at other places across the state: 

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In 20 small towns like Alibaug, Ashta and Bhor have no homeless people at all. The city currently has only 19 civic-run shelters out of which 12 are reserved just for children. However, the BMC has now proposed for more 33 shelters across the city. 

Talking about the same, an activist said, "It cannot be possible that the number of homeless people in the city has decreased when we can clearly see the contradiction. It is believed that that are over 2 lakh homeless people across the city and the proposed 33 shelters would be insufficient to accommodate them." 

In 2017, the Supreme Court (SC) visited the shelters in Mumbai and expressed their dissatisfaction for the same as it was not according to the norms laid by the National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM) which states that shelters should be open at all times and cater for free to anyone who is homeless. 

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