Advertisement
India
This Week in AsiaHealth & Environment

India’s merciless heat torments New Delhi’s homeless: ‘sun burns down on us like fire’

  • Soaring temperatures are making life on the streets unbearable for New Delhi’s homeless
  • Critics slam the government’s demolition of shanty homes for compounding the crisis

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0
Homeless people are seen resting under a flyover on the banks of the Yamuna river in New Delhi to shield themselves from the sun on May 31. Photo: AFP
Kamran Yousuf
The homeless in India’s capital New Delhi are battling to stay alive in an unrelenting heatwave where temperatures have soared to 47 degrees Celsius (116.6 degrees Fahrenheit), scorching concrete footpaths to the extent that such surfaces are still unbearably hot to sleep on at night.

“The sun burns down on us like fire, making the streets unbearable. Our only shelter is a mosquito net, which offers little relief from insects but not from the heat,” said Naseema, 30, who lives with her husband on the streets near Jangpura in Delhi.

Desperate to protect her one-year-old son through the night, Naseema clutches a cardboard fan, relentlessly trying to keep him cool. “He wakes up constantly from the heat, and I can’t sleep for fear of the big rats … I’m terrified of the rats, afraid they might bite my son.”

Naseema, 30, tries to sleep under a mosquito net with her one-year-old son on the streets near Jangpura, New Delhi. Photo: Durdana Bhat/Handout
Naseema, 30, tries to sleep under a mosquito net with her one-year-old son on the streets near Jangpura, New Delhi. Photo: Durdana Bhat/Handout

With daily temperatures this month soaring past 47 degrees, Delhi’s homeless aren’t expected to get much sleep.

Independent estimates suggest between 200,000 and 250,000 people are without shelter in Indian capital, including women, children, and marginalised groups.

The Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board manages 195 shelters with a combined capacity of just 16,675 beds, falling far short of the estimated homeless population.

Despite the urgent need for shelter, the board’s demolition of eight shelter homes in March last year left numerous people without a place to live. Critics say the crisis is compounded by ongoing evictions and forced demolitions of slums and homes.

Advertisement