Special Daycare Bus Unveiled for Street Children in Thane

The Maharashtra Women and Child Welfare department recently launched a special bus for street children in Thane, which will provide daycare and counselling facilities. The bus service is called 'Balsnehi’ and will be operated by a private NGO. The bus was introduced to the public as a ‘pilot’ project, which means it was a first-of-its-kind facility tested out in Thane. The program was unveiled by Thane District Collector Ashok Shingare.

The bus facility will operate in three places as of now- Bhiwandi, Thane, and Mumbra. It will further extend to Nashik, Pune, and Nagpur districts in the later phases. The bus can accommodate around 50-70 children in six-hour sessions which are broken down throughout the day. Under the program, squads of a teacher and a counsellor, as well as a driver and an assistant, would go across a district in a designated vehicle to integrate these children into society and assure their education through government schemes and efforts.

It is estimated that around 1900 students can be targeted with this initiative, in 160 different spots throughout the city. The parents of several street children or those below the poverty line have been convinced about the programme. Food and snacks will also be provided to these students. The aim is to seamlessly blend these street children into mainstream living. However, a crucial question arises at this about whether or not such a program will be able to sustain itself in the long run.

An official from the Thane Municipal Corporation, Manisha Joshi, from the Education department, mentioned, “Right now since the initiative is directly from the government of Maharashtra, we are simply gauging how much it can be expanded. It is definitely a very ambitious project. But about the future, I cannot say for sure. I can only hope that things turn out for the best.”