Karnataka welfare minister shunted out after beggars’ deaths

BANGALORE - Karnataka Social Welfare Minister D. Sudhakar lost his portfolio late Friday in the wake of 22 beggars dying in this city since Wednesday due to negligence and suspected food poisoning, a senior official said.

“Sudhakar has been shifted out of social welfare ministry and given the Muzarai (temple endowment) portfolio. Minor Irrigation Minister Govind Karjol has been given the ministry as an additional portfolio,” an official in the chief minister’s office told IANS.

The decision to shunt out Sudhakar was taken by Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa after an emergency meeting he held at the secretariat with some of his cabinet colleagues and top officials on returning from a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rally at Bellary, about 320 km from here.

“Governor H.R. Bhardwaj accepted the changes in the portfolios recommended by the chief minister,” the official added.

The chief minister also suspended Karnataka State Rehabilitation Centre chairman Manjesh Gowda and secretary Krishna Gowda for the dramatic rise in the death of beggars this month under mysterious circumstances.

“I have ordered an inquiry to ascertain causes behind the sudden rise in the death of beggars’ in their colony. I am visiting the colony Saturday to inspect the facilities and the conditions in which they are sheltered,” Yeddyurappa told reporters later.

According to records at the state social welfare department, about 105 beggars died this month in the beggars’ colony in the western suburb of the city as against 43 in July, 56 in June, 34 in May and 20 in April.

Earlier in the day, scores of inmates at the state-run destitute rehabilitation centre fled even as its officials were busy seeing off state Home Minister V.S. Acharya and three other ministers who had inquired about the reasons for the sudden rise in deaths of beggars this week.

“A large number of inmates made use of the opportunity provided when the centre’s officials were busy briefing seeing off ministers, who visited the camp. They fled from the camp,” an official said.

State-run hospital sources confirmed that Wednesday that 12 inmates of the centre died Wednesday, while eight more deaths were reported Thursday and two Friday.

Acharya, however, maintained that the 22 beggars had died of “natural causes”.

“Though government doctors certified all the deaths natural, I have asked the social welfare department commissioner to submit a report on the causes that led to these deaths,” Acharya, a medical doctor by profession, told reporters.

The camp was set up decades ago to house and provide skills training to people found begging. It was part of the government’s efforts to end beggary.

Though the place is meant to house about 900 people, it has more than 2,500 people living there, leading to complaints of unhygienic conditions.

Acharya said a panel will be set up to suggest improvements at the centre as majority of the inmates were suffering from chronic diseases. Several terminally-ill patients were also in the centre, he said.