Before the start of winter months, Indian officials are planning to convert old railway coaches into shelters for the homeless. The government has asked various states to start fitting the coaches with sewerage connections and electricity. The coaches will then be moved to areas in the cities where shelters are needed.
As per the sources, the southern state of Telangana will be acquiring up to 10 coaches for this purpose. Also, L. Vandana Kumar, a minister in the state department, in his recent interview said, “We have asked officials to look into the logistics of converting 5 to 10 coaches into shelters”. He further added, “The main issue to building shelters in the cities is the lack of land. We are looking into possible solutions; this is a temporary solution until then”.
According to the official data, there are about 1.7 million homeless people in India. Charitable organisations claim the data to be higher than estimated.
