NEW DELHI: Sonu is four years old and a beggar. Chances are he is closing in on his life sentence daily, when you consider how he earns a living.

“I haven’t eaten since morning, please give me some money” are his daily words to the drivers of cars, rickshaws and scooters on a busy road junction in Delhi. He approaches the moment the lights turn red.

The boy lives in a slum. If he doesn’t beg, he goes to the market to meet his friends and plays there between the shops. On a good day, he could earn up to Rs 100 which he later delivers to his parents.

Some of his beggar friends don’t have that choice however. For them, it’s a case of giving the money they receive to the men who organize and control begging groups.

But since the beginning of September, Sonu’s life has become increasingly difficult. Begging is long forbidden in India, but children and the handicapped who do it for a living traditionally have not been driven away by authorities.

Now the authorities have come up with a new law which penalizes those who give to beggars from their cars and motorcycles at busy street junctions.

The reason for this says the city administration is that the traffic congestion is “not being made any better by the presence of beggars”, or so states the civil servant who formulated the law.

In spite of this donating remains in the Hindu faith, in Islam and in Buddhism a religious obligation.

“Surviving has become more difficult for all of us”, says Aqeel Hussein, a beggar whose left arm was mutilated in an accident.

Hussein was forced to give up his position as a craftsmen and as a result became a beggar. “People here won’t give us anything any more. They are afraid of police”, he said.

From the politicians’ and officials’ point of view, beggars have been for a long time now a thorn in the side.

“Organized beggars work on all major street junctions. Every morning they arrive to the bus stations where they spend the entire day”, according to the vice president of the traffic police in Delhi, Maxwell Pereira. “They are obstructing the traffic unnecessarily, one beggar will block a stream of cars,” he adds.

Sanjay Gupta for the “Chetna” organization which helps street kids does not believe the new laws mean an end to begging. “Poverty won’t disappear just because you forbid people donating”, he says.—dpa