Homeless, 8 dying daily amid harsh cold

Samad Hoque

New Delhi, January 23

Nearly eight homeless people died every day in the month of January this year as the national capital witnessed one of its harshest winters. The city has so far seen five ‘cold day’ and ‘cold wave’ conditions this month.

Shelter homes in pathetic state

The government agencies have also failed to address concerns regarding the ‘inhabitable’ condition of shelter homes. Many of these lack the basic facilities of drinking water and toilets. Also, safety remains a key concern at those meant for women. — Sunil Kumar Aledia, Executive Director, Centre for holistic development

As many as 180 deaths of homeless persons have already recorded till January 23 this year. Delhi had witnessed death of 359 homeless individuals in the entire month of January last year.

The Centre for Holistic Development (CHD), a non-profit organisation, which advocates for the rights of homeless people, on Tuesday, shared the data in a bid to highlight the mortality trends involving homeless people, which showed a rising trend in the number of deaths.

Sunil Kumar Aledia, Executive Director of the CHD, said, “The data has been procured from the Zonal Integrated Police Network of the Delhi Police. This shows that homeless people are in dismal conditions.” He urged the government to provide them proper shelter homes.

In 2019, Delhi saw 342 deaths of homeless people in November and 375 in December. This reduced in 2020, owing to the movement restrictions during the Covid pandemic. However, after Covid cases reduced, the number of deaths among homeless had again witnessed a rise every year.

In November 2020, at the height of Covid, the city saw death of 247 homeless people. The number rose to 324 in November 2023, registering a 23.7 per cent increase in monthly deaths of homeless people in comparison to the Covid period.

Similarly, 225 homeless people reportedly died in December 2020 while 295 deaths were reported during the corresponding period in 2023.

The overall number of deaths of homeless people have fluctuated between 2020 and 2024 — 3,501 in 2020, 3,222 in 2021, 4,042 in 2012 and 3,834 in 2023.

For the month of January, the highest number of such deaths in the past six years were reported in 2019. At least 544 homeless people reportedly died in January 2019, followed by 374 in 2020 and 359 last year.

According to the 2011 Census, there were 46,724 homeless people in the Capital. Kumar, however, said that there were around 1.5 lakh homeless people on the streets of the national capital.

“Homeless people in Delhi are in a pathetic condition. The government is not listening to their issues while the agencies are also not paying heed to the ‘inhabitable’ condition of these shelter homes,” he said.

“Many shelter homes lack the basic facilities of drinking water and toilets. Also, the number of shelter homes for females and families are inadequate while safety and security remain key concerns at those meant solely for women,” Kumar added.

Meanwhile, reacting to the data, Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said, “It’s shocking to note that on an average every day eight persons have died due to cold on Delhi roads under open sky in January 2024 due to “criminal negligence” of the Arvind Kejriwal government.”

“In December 2023, we had raised the issue of growing numbers of deaths of homeless people due to cold and urged the Delhi Government to ensure that they do not have to sleep on roadsides and are shifted to proper shelter homes,” he added.

The Aam Aadmi Party has refuted the allegations, saying: “It has been claimed that those people died due to cold, but no post-mortem report has been attached or referred to. Data on the website shows where figures of each month, including summers, are similar.”

AAP sources said, “Until the cause of these death is conclusively proven, it is highly inappropriate to assert that they died because they were homeless.”

They said that the situation in Delhi should be compared with the governments of the neighbouring states. “The current status of night shelters in Gurugram and Noida is not hidden from anyone,” they added.