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How profitable can begging really be?

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Mumbai beggars earn Rs 180 crore a year
Wednesday, July 19, 2006 19:50 IST

Updated at 1.11 am, Thursday

MUMBAI: It?s a question the middle class asks every time a hand is stretched out piteously at a traffic signal, on a train, on the street. Is this a genuine case or a member of a syndicate?

According to Social Justice Minister Dharmarao Baba Atram, Mumbai?s beggars collectively earn a whopping Rs180 crore every year, or about Rs50 lakh a month.

Atram told the legislative council on Wednesday, ?Most of them are fit and fine, yet do not work for a living. They just beg. The government is thinking of bringing them under the Employment Guarantee Scheme.?

The last head count of beggars, carried out in 1971, pegged their population at 55,000. But Vilas Avchat of the Shiv Sena, who initiated the discussion in the council, said the figure is much higher.

According to Avchat, the government had banned beggary in 1959, but an amendment in 1964 gave licences to beggars. Since then, he said, the number of beggars in the city has been rising.

?In 1963, it was 20,000, and in 2004, it went up to 3 lakh,? he said. Quoting from a 2004 survey, he also claimed that the number of beggars born in Mumbai is just 2 per cent. ?They beg near airports, railway stations, cinema halls, and tourist spots. Most of them harass foreign tourists. Their daily income is around Rs200 to Rs225,? he said.

Atram disagreed with Avchat?s statistics but said the law would be amended to remove beggars from the city and bring them under the EGS.
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Seems quite profitable 😀 but what exactly is the value of "Rs 180 crore" in US$? 😕
 
There's a well-known panhandler in Cleveland that I believe was reported to make ~$70k/yr. Not sure if it's true or not, but he was right outside my office every single day.
 
I remember a radio station did that gig once and their guy made $20/hr panhandling...and that's tax free btw.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore

A crore (Devanagari: ?????) is a unit in the Indian numbering system, still widely used in Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. It was also used in Iran for many centuries until some decades ago.

An Indian crore is equal to 100 lakhs or 10 million (107). An Iranian crore (???? (Korur) in Persian) is half a million (500,000).

This system of measurement also introduces separators into numbers in a different place than that which is common outside India. For example, 30 million (3 crores) would be written as 3,00,00,000, with commas at the thousand, lakh, and crore levels, instead of 30,000,000.

The unit is also known as Koti (Bengali: ????) in the Bengali language speaking areas.

The Mumbai underworld slang for a crore is a khokha.
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I must of done the math wrong but I calculated that 180 crore a year is ~39 million USD.

And Rs200 is only $4.32

Edit: I missed the words "collectively earn".
 
Originally posted by: jmcoreymv
I must of done the math wrong but I calculated that 180 crore a year is ~39 million USD.

Edit: I missed the words "collectively earn".
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Your English skills are no great shakes either.

 
Originally posted by: jmcoreymv
I must of done the math wrong but I calculated that 180 crore a year is ~39 million USD.

And Rs200 is only $4.32

Edit: I missed the words "collectively earn".
Click to expand...

Damn.. that's quite a bit.... there should be an outsourcing strategy for beggers.... 😀 😉
 
i tried to beg for money, and it didn't work. 🙁

i guess i need to stop using email as my begging method.

😛
 
Originally posted by: tami
i tried to beg for money, and it didn't work. 🙁

i guess i need to stop using email as my begging method.

😛
Click to expand...

😀 You need a trip to Mumbai for advice... 😛
 
I've seen some pretty slick characters in downtown Cincinnati. When I worked down there, there was a man I would see from time to time at the gas station around the corner. Everytime I saw him he had a quick one liner about how he needed money to get home to see his family. One time I saw him counting his money. It was a pretty large wad of cash. I don't know how many times I've been asked by people at car washes or gas stations for money. I tell them I don't carry cash on me (which is the truth).
 
This also reminds me of the time when I drove my TA to that same gas station. A homeless looking man said to me, "Man is that a Trans AM? It looks GREAT!" I looked at him for a few seconds then looked back at the car. After the "compliment" he went on by asking me for money. I always dreaded getting anything at that gas station.
 
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