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Patna,(BiharTimes): Notwithstanding Supreme Court order there are only 21 raen-baseras or night shelters for at least 35,000 homeless people in Patna. They had to spend nights under sky even in chilly winter every year. Most of these night shelters were built about two decades back and several of them are now in a dilapidated condition. Human beings and animals live together in them.
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With plastic-sheets to cover the body they pass night after night shivering literally under the sky. In the name of bonfires hardly any proper arrangement has been made. Bonfires are too few and far between. The homeless are denied the basic facilities by the state government year after year.
The state government had a couple of years back filed three affidavit in the Supreme Court to promise that the homeless would be provided shelter and security.
The SC, in its Feb 10, 2010 order, had said that all major cities in all States and Union Territories which have a population of more than five lakh have to be provided with night shelters in a ratio of one night shelter per lakh of population equipped with basic facilities such as electricity, water arrangements, toilet facilities, sanitation arrangement, and beddings, that is, blankets, mattresses, and jute mats.
Besides, Patna several other cities in Bihar now fall under this criteria. But the state government is yet to abide by the SC’s order.
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