India court directive over cold deaths

 

The poor are worst affected by the cold weather

India's Supreme Court has directed states to ensure that adequate night shelters are provided to the homeless during the winter so that "not a single person died" from the cold.

The capital, Delhi, along with Indian-administered Kashmir and the states of Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh are usually badly hit by the cold.
More than 50 people died in the cold in northern India last year.
The cold snap also forced authorities to close down schools.
The court expressed concern that most states were yet to provide adequate shelters to the homeless, and asked the authorities to file a report on the condition of the facilities by 3 January.
"You should not allow even a single person to die this winter from the freezing cold," the judges said.
Delhi is one of the worst affected cities with at least 150,000 people sleeping rough in the freezing cold, according to a 2008 study.
"At the peak of winter, four people on an average die of cold in Delhi every day," Indu Prakash of the Indo-Global Social Services Society, which works with the homeless, told the BBC.
Authorities say that the capital has 64 night shelters for the homeless. But activists say only 42 of these shelters were working, and the remaining had been closed down.
"Has the number of homeless people decreased in Delhi?" Justice Dalveer Bhandari asked. "It is difficult to believe."
Last year the Delhi government set up 84 night shelter tents, but only 16 of them continue to function after the government stopped paying NGOs to run the shelters, Mr Prakash said.
The court said it was not satisfied with the state of the night shelters in at least 14 states.
Last year a cold snap in northern India killed several people, shut schools and disrupted flights. The highway linking Kashmir with the rest of India was also shut due to snowfall.
Indian homes rarely have central heating - a regular feature in buildings in the West.