Within a fortnight of launching mobile application to rescue homeless people during winter, the Delhi government on Thursday claimed it had rescued 131 people while 30 people had refused to be shifted.
“The total number of complaints recorded through this mobile application and phone calls were 159. 131 were rescued, 18 homeless were not found while 30 had refused to be shifted. Five are currently being attended to,” a Delhi government official said.
A government spokesperson also added that the 20 rescue teams currently on duty had also rescued 1570 people to the ‘nearest shelters since 1 December.’
While announcing the launch of this mobile app on 4 December, Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB), had said that users could download the ‘rain-basera’ app and can initiate a rescue operation over the phone by taking a picture and posting it on the app.
The DUSIB server automatically detects the location of the person before informing the nearest rescue team to the location.
A survey conducted in 2014 had said there were about 16,000 homeless people in Delhi with most of them predominantly concentrated in the Walled City area, central Delhi, in several railway stations and bus teminals.
DUSIB has so far created 198 night shelters with a capacity to accommodate 16,338 homeless people.