Being centrally located, the city of Nagpur generates economic opportunities and brings in migrants from Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Andra Pradesh. The poor from neighbouring states migrate to the city in search of alternative livelihoods; most of them end up living in slums with inadequate facilities and support systems.

 

The city of Nagpur has 446 slums (NMC 2008) which are often bereft of basic facilities. Most of the slum population lives in temporary structures. The majority of the adult males form these slum communities work as daily laborers and female adults as domestic workers. A major section of the population in some slum communities lives on rag picking and begging.

Addictions are a curse in many families and children are often a neglected lot in such families. The family break up rate is as high as 40% in communities which lack a conducive family atmosphere.

 

Children are exposed to various developmental and health hazards and female children are exposed to the risk of sexual harassment and physical exploitation and consequently their moral and psychological development is at stake.

Mangarwadi, Wadar and Gond are tribes whose traditional occupation is begging; reside in the peripheries of the huge slum area named Gittikhadan in Nagpur. These communities are involved traditionally in begging and rag picking, and hence pass on the tradition to their children and push them on to the street from infancy onwards.

 

The children from these communities beg and rag pick as an economic activity along with their family members. They are trapped into a vicious cycle as they have not been provided an opportunity for different way of living. Hence they are deprived of their childhood and basic rights to education and dignified living.