As per them, the real motive of people who come to stay at the shelter is to drink, which is not allowed in public. They also said that people coming here are always fighting with each other. "You need come and see real picture in the evening after 6.30 pm. They drink, fight and urinate on our streets. And when they are not allowed to get inside the shelter they sleep in front of our houses and thus it becomes difficult for our women and children to come out in the night," said a local resident.
Some shelter seekers also steal things from nearby houses and there is no one to stop them. "Since the night shelter was started the number of thefts has increased as these people steal small things outside our houses. They sometimes also jump into houses and when we complain against them to the police they go to MCG and complain against us. This is a horrible experience."
As the Bhim Nagar shelter in Gurgaon is run by an NGO which is under local jurisdiction, locals believe that it is useless to complain about this as nobody will take any action. More than this they also said that inside the shelter things are not fine, and people here always fight for food.
Only 60 people are allowed here in one night and they serve food for only 30. So they also fight for food which is not sufficient for them. They fight inside and those left they fight outside with each other in order to get in," said an old man.
But inside the shelter the story was totally different because as per MCG records, 102 people stayed in the shelter on 26th of January and on 29th of January 104 people took shelter. A man named Mahesh Sigh Chauhan from Alwar, Rajasthan, who came to find a job told this citizen journalist that any number of people can come here and stay in night and food is never insufficient for anyone.
I am staying here since the last 10 days and found this place very good. Any number of people can come and stay. But they give food to only those who come till 9pm in night and after that whosoever comes they will only get food if it's available. But it is very rare that people do not get food," Mahesh said.
He also admitted that local people have some problems due to drunk people coming here and he has complained many times. "Yes, they are not happy as many people create drama after drinking so the care taker gets an order to put these drunk men in a separate room and do not let them go out so that they don't create problems for other people in the colony," Mahesh added.
Sanjay Chugh, a PRO of MCG and a man behind this night shelter, said that all these issues are not true and these people are just not happy and complaining because they wanted their RWA to be included in this social cause, and want to indulge in politics but Joint Commissioner has rejected their appeal.
They are just lying. Actually they want this place to be a community centre in which they can organize parties, and give this place on rent for marriages and earn money so when we came up with the idea of a night shelter they opposed," said Chug. "When they failed to stop us they tried to include their RWA in this cause but our Joint Commissioner said that we do not want any kind of politics in this social cause."
He also said that before this night shelter there was a municipal store room and nobody was taking care of this place. "Nobody bothered to clean up this place. Their RWA was just trying to use this space for their own purpose like parking their cars, and when we built this shelter and didn't gave any importance to their RWA they have started saying these things," Chugh added.
Right now about 20 beds are available for the people and more than 100 beddings are available in the shelter for the people coming here. But the matter of concern is even if there are 100 people who are coming daily to the night shelter there is insufficient facilities present in the shelter. For 100 people on an average, there is only one washroom and toilet due to which every day there is chaos in the shelter.
"I think that still there are many problems in our night shelter but we will improve regularly and bring more facilities for the people who are staying there. There is a long way to go," Chug admits.
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