The Delhi government will soon appoint a board of five members who will inspect all homes in the city meant for the mentally challenged, elderly, beggars etc, which fall under the social welfare department, Delhi’s social welfare minister Mangat Ram Singhal told Governance Now here.

“In a meeting with the chief minister it has been decided that a board of five members will be selected who will inspect all homes under the social welfare ministry. They board members will be selected soon and action will be taken after their recommendations and suggestions,” said Singhal.

Three out of these five officials will be from the government and two will be from the private sector with some experience in the social sector. However, no fix timeline for submission of the assessment report was given by the minister.

This decision was taken in the wake of difference of opinion between Singhal and his department over shifting the inmates of Asha Kiran, home for the mentally challenged in Rohini, to two other centres in Delhi.

Singhal said, “I do not have any objection in shifting the inmates to some other centres, but they should be given proper facilities there.”

He adds that the two homes, one in Dwarka and the other in Bindapur, are old age homes and are designed for the needs of the elderly and not for the mentally challenged.

“The toilets there are on a sharing basis and far away from the rooms. This does not fit the requirements for a mentally challenged person,” he said.

Singhal has proposed building new homes for the mentally challenged on vacant lands instead of shifting them to inappropriate homes.

“Delhi government has two plots of land, 10 acre land in Narela and five acre land in Rohini, lying vacant. Why cannot new buildings for the mentally challenged be constructed there? If this proposal is approved, we will build hospitals inside these homes for timely treatment of the ill inmates,” he adds.

Last year, 52 inmates at Asha Kiran died due to overcrowding and mismanagement of the centre. The home has inmates double its capacity. After the appalling conditions of the home were made public, the Delhi government proposed shifting the inmates to other homes in the city.