Recently, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit proposed a way to get homeless children off the streets. She had been on a visit to Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences in Bhubaneswar, Orissa. The institute run by Achyutananda Samanta, an entrepreneur, houses over 12,000 homeless children from the state's 30 districts. The children cook their own food, have been taught to stitch their own uniforms - they are being trained early in life in self-dependence. They are also being educated under the state curriculum. Dikshit seems to think that this model could be replicated in Delhi.

But Delhi has over one lakh homeless children - all in need of shelter, access to sanitation, adequate nutrition and education. Not just are the numbers overwhelming in case of Delhi, it also doesn't have the support structure a private body like KISS does. At the institute, children are handheld from nursery onwards till post-graduation, as the case merits. Higher education institutes in Orissa also reserve certain number of seats for students of economically backward classes. Delhi, meanwhile, grapples with RTE guidelines for admission at the nursery levels.

Delhi's child and women development minister Kiran Walia clarfied on the issue, and offered a tentative plan to ensure RTE is implemented in spirit, as well as in letter. A school modelled after KISS would be a 1,000 students strong and would have a mentor for every 20 children. SO, going by the plan, one needs to arrange 50 teachers for 50 such batches to get 1,000 of the city's one lakh homeless children educated. If we extrapolate the figures, we would need 100 such schools, with 5,000 teachers to get the education of these children kickstarted in the same academic year.

The Delhi government has identified some land for such a school at Ishapur in najafgarh, where an old, abandoned school building stands. Orissa, on the other hand, has leased the land to KISS for 30 years on an annual licence fee basis and would be taking care of the renovation and infrastructure procurement costs. This adds up to almost Rs 5.42 crores. Will Delhi be able to do the same, considering the entire exercise for 100 schools will mean an expenditure of Rs 542 crores (assuming that the costs stay the same in Delhi and in Orissa)?

One also hears that an advisory committee comprising the chief secretary, education secretary and the women and child development department officials will screen the admissions into such schools for the homeless. Wopnder what the criterion for admissions would then be! Would there be point system comparing conditions of homelessness, or would there be a lottery to decide if one homeless child is luckier than another.

Thankfully, before I could question the wisdom of the government, the chief minister herself proffered, "The project is still in the nascent stage. We are working out the details as the situations in Orissa and Delhi vary greatly."