‘Tech-savvy’ beggars now seek alms using QR codes

“Cash nahin hai [no cash],” says a hurried shopper in Nehru Place, waving off a child beggar with a dhol in her hand. Without missing a beat, 13-year-old Muskan swings her dhol to the side, revealing a QR code pasted neatly on its skin. “Ispe kardo [pay here],” she insists, often turning a moment of refusal into a digital transaction.

Muskan’s parents work in a circus but are rarely around. She admits that performing on the streets is part performance, part begging. Her use of QR codes mark the strange convergence of old survival strategies and new technology.

Nearby sits 40-year-old Bhanwarlal, who once sold toys but turned to begging after a motorcycle accident left him unable to walk properly. “I used to sell toys with a QR code for payments. Now I can no longer sell, but the QR continues to work,” he said.

He survives on around Rs 250 a day, sometimes less, sleeping under a bridge in south Delhi. His younger brother sells toys, while their mother “roams the streets picking garbage.”

Begging in India is not new, but the rise of digital payments is changing how it is done. Transgender persons, too, increasingly request alms through QR codes.

Rashmi, a transgender person near the Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station, said digital payments reduce daily arguments with commuters who say they carry no cash. “Earlier people would say ‘cash nahin hai,’ now we ask them to scan,” she said.

Courts have repeatedly underlined the need for rehabilitation instead of punishment. In 2018, the Delhi High Court decriminalised begging, observing that people beg not out of choice but compulsion.

The Supreme Court echoed this in 2021: “We cannot take an elitist view and remove all beggars from the streets. The only solution is rehabilitation —education, employment and a humane approach.”

Beggars remain on the streets in growing numbers in the city. The 2011 Census recorded 2,187 beggars in Delhi. A decade later, a 2021 survey by Delhi’s Social Welfare Department and the Institute for Human Development found a nearly ninefold increase, estimating 20,719 beggars in the city. East Delhi had the highest concentration (2,797), followed by Shahdara (2,666), North West (2,572) and Central Delhi (2,422).

The Delhi Government launched a pilot vocational training programme covering house painting and handicrafts, with many participants showing initial commitment. Policy responses have often been short-term — such as ahead of the G20 Summit in 2023, when over 4,000 beggars and homeless persons were relocated to shelters in Rohini and Dwarka.

At the national level, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment launched the Support for Marginalised Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise (SMILE) scheme in 2022, with a sub-scheme aimed at identifying, profiling and rehabilitating people engaged in begging.

According to official records, of 9,958 persons identified, 970 had been rehabilitated by December 2024, including 352 children. The government allocated Rs 100 crore for the programme for 2023-26. But as of December 2024, only Rs 14.71 crore had been spent.

The scheme’s stated aim is to make “identified urban spaces, mainly religious, tourist and historical cities free from beggary,” with local government agencies and municipal bodies tasked to survey, counsel and rehabilitate people, and then support their resettlement.

However, activists say the gap between policy and implementation remains wide. “The government assumes all homeless people are beggars, but that is not the case,” said Sunil Aledia, national convener of the National Forum for Homeless Housing Rights, an organisation working on homeslessness.

“There has not been a proper study on how many actually ask for money for survival. The SMILE programme looks good on paper, but on the ground there is limited capacity in shelters and duplication of efforts,” he said.

He added that urbanisation and large-scale demolitions were pushing more people into homelessness and begging. “We are talking about Digital India, and now even beggars are resorting to QR codes. It shows where we have reached. But unless there is a policy-level intervention, this will only increase,” he said.

As the government pushes digital welfare schemes and cashless transactions, Delhi’s beggars too are adapting. QR codes on dhols, bowls and phone screens are becoming part of the city’s street economy — an uneasy blend of survival and technology.