Take Action, Lessen Plight Of Homeless In 8 Weeks: Rights Body To Centre

The Human Rights activist informed that there are about 18 million street children in India, the largest number of any country in the world, with eleven million being urban.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Tuesday quizzed the Secretaries of various Central Ministries including Home, Health and Family Welfare, and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, over the plight of millions of homeless people and street children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering a petition filed by Radhakanta Tripathy, a noted human rights activist and civil rights lawyer in the Supreme Court, the NHRC asked the Secretaries to act over the issue within eight weeks. Mr Tripathy in his petition has alleged that millions of homeless people, including lakhs of street children in India have been suffering immensely for a long time. "Especially, they are subjected to COVID infection without bare necessities of life and COVID testing and precautionary measures. They suffer silently without basic human rights in all the States and Union Territories of India due to negligence, inaction and failure of the Government Authorities in India. This amounts to a serious human rights problem during the Pandemic in India," Mr Tripathy alleged.