Beggar Free Bangalore?

Government has launched a month long program to observe "Beggar free month" in Bangalore. Lot of our money already goes in beggar rehabilitation (to the tune of 6 to 7 crores per year). Not sure how this money has been utilized till date, but government now wants to make some use of this money. As per Indian laws, begging is a punishable crime & beggars can be sent for 1 to 3 years of imprisonment. 

Definitely it is a welcome sign, considering that even begging has its own mafia. But, I was wondering why government is targeting only the one-rupee-beggars, while the other bigger beggars getting in thousands & lakhs per day are left free to loot more. Government, can you do something with them too?

By the way, I had an encounter with another kind of beggar few months back  (refer to http://vikki-pedia.blogspot.com/2009/06/curious-case-of-ramanath-iyer.html).  A man & daughter posing as lost in Bangalore & wanting to get some money to go back to their home town. Some of us in the apartment had helped them with 2000 Rs. Now there are reports from different parts of the city that these beggars are looting people with the same story with little twist. Be it a rupee beggar or a sophisticated beggar, it is difficult to trust anyone. 

Just some thoughts on how to tackle this kind of situation if some really "lost" people approaches you for money & promise to return the money back after reaching the place:

• Easiest thing to do is to neglect them (with heavy heart, assuming that they are begging)
• If you really want to help, help them, but ensure that you also take few snaps/vidoes of them (with your friendly (Nokia?? :-)) mobile phone). If not it helps in tracking or giving complaints to police later, it will atleast have an impact on the beggar. You can find out if he/she is genuine or not by looking at their reaction to taking the video/photos.
• Offer them the help of local police to go back to their place. (You can just tell them that you know the inspector & inspector can help them).

These were some thoughts which came to my mind after I got duped. I wish I had taken any of the above steps to avoid that beggar. I hope you can take these precautions when you encounter such a situation in future.