New Delhi has launched a campaign to clear the streets of beggars, as the city prepares to host this year's Commonwealth Games.Mobile courts in the Indian capital are conducting summary trials of beggars, in an effort to revamp the city's image before October's games.
It is estimated that Delhi is home to about 60,000 adult beggars and according to experts, nearly half of the 100,000 street children in beg for a living.
The courts are now rotating through sections of New Delhi, conducting summary trials on beggars brought before the courts by police raids.
They operate under the the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, which was passed in 1959 in Mumbai and extended to 18 states including Delhi, and makes it a criminal offence to beg.
The courts send habitual beggars to one of the dozen shelters the Delhi government has opened up. Children caught begging are sent to juvenile homes.
The New Delhi government now plans to create a database of beggars and set up biometric systems in the shelters to identify repeat offenders.
M.M Gupta, one of the duty magistrates says the drive by the civic authorities was to reform beggars and not imprison them.
"Rehabilitation centres are there for reforming them," he said.
"We are sending them there. We are not sentencing anybody, any beggars. We are just sending them for rehabilition purposes so they may have some shelther which they are in need of."
But Colin Gonsalvez, a New Dehi lawyer says the courts are attempting to drive beggars away from the city.
"Basically it's a drive to get rid of beggars in the city of Delhi," he said.
"To give an impression to the person coming for the Commonwealth Games that Delhi is a city without beggars. No poverty at all."
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