ACKNOWLEDGEMENT www.sochforchildren.org

SOCIETY FOR CHILDREN

(SOCH)

BASELINE SURVEY REPORT ROURKELA RAILWAY STATION

27th Oct 2016 – 29th Oct 2016

Project Rakshyak

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Runaway and street children represent one of the most vulnerable groups being in every major railway station

in India .SOCH has decided to focus its intervention on this critical group of children at Rourkela and taken a

step to conduct a study. Therefore with the support of Childline, CWC, DCPO and railway authority we

conducted a study at Rourkela railway station

Society for children (SOCH) is very thankful to Rourkela railway authorities like station manager, RPF, and

CTI teams for their support & cooperation for carry out this base line survey.

We express our gratitude to all the team members of CWC and Childline for their whole-hearted support and

cooperation and invaluable suggestions.

Special thanks to GRP IIC and their whole team for fully cooperation for provide us a space for counseling to

rescue children.

Last but not the least we have to acknowledge and appreciate the pro-activeness, enthusiasm and participation

of the Volunteers from BJB College. The success of the Survey is attributed heavily upon them.

And finally all cheers to the SOCH Team who fought all odds and stringent timelines and successfully

accomplished the task with limited resources with mutual cooperation and understanding.

INTRODUCTION

Rakshyak Project carries out different activities on the identification, rescue and resettlement of the runaway,

missing and abandoned children at Railway Stations. This Project focuses on the immediate rescue of children

who are at high risk of trafficking and provides them with help. Rescued children are brought to a temporary

shelter for necessary care (food, shelter, cloth and fast-aid) and counseling. Family reunion being the top

priority efforts are made to trace their family address first to reunite them with their families or else put them

on institutional care with appropriate involvement of government’s juvenile justice system.

ROURKELA IN BRIEF

Rourkela is a city located in the northern border of the Indian state of Odisha, also known as Orissa. It comes

under Sundergarh district.. It is third largest city of Odisha. It is situated about 340 kilometers north of state

capital Bhubaneswar, and is surrounded by a range of hills and encircled by rivers. The city is also popularly

known as Ispat Nagar and also as the Steel City of Odisha. It has one of the largest steel plants of the Steel

Authority of India Limited (SAIL) known as Rourkela Steel Plant. It also has one of the National Institutes of

Technology (NIT Rourkela) of the country

Rourkela also called as Mini India as it is cosmopolitan city. Here the people of different languages, cultures

from different states of India reside.

ROURKELA RAILWAY STATION AT-A-GLANCE

Rourkela railway station is a railway junction located in the north-western part of

the Indian state of Odisha and serves Rourkela in district. This Station is amongst the top hundred booking

stations of Indian Railway. It’s consisting of five platforms. The station is comparatively cleaner, having all

the facilities. Approximately 50 trains run per day along with 4-5 weekly trains connect to other biggest

places of India. There are two entrance and exit gates, two foot over bridge, auto stand, taxi stand and market

near to the Railway station. Adjoing the station are the Gopabandhu Palli and Indra Nagar (Slum areas).

OBJECTIVE OF THE SURVEY

To know the inflow of freshly landed runaway and missing children at Rourkela Railway station.

To understand the issues associated with old children staying in and around at Rourkela Railway

station.

To rescue all the needy children who come in contact with us while doing the survey and resettle them

with help of a local based NGOs, Rourkela childline.

To create awareness and sensitization among the stakeholders as well as passengers regarding the

child issues at platforms.

To properly cover all the platforms as well as oversee each trains crossing through platform.

DURATION OF THE SURVEY

In order to know the situation of missing, runaway and old children at station, we conducted 3 days

survey at Rourkela Railway station from 27th

October 2016 to 29th

October 2016. The survey was

carried out in two shifts for 7 hours each i.e.

A. First shift (7AM -2PM)

B. Second shift (2PM -9PM)

GROUNDING FOR THE SURVEY

Permission was taken from the station manager of Rourkela Railway Station and the other Railway

authorities. At the same time we also took the permission of Rourkela CWC member as well as from

Childline.

An orientation meeting was held on 26th

October 2016 among SOCH team as well as college

volunteers for healthier understanding the survey objectives.

Two teams were formed with 7 members each lead by 1 Team Leader respectively under the overall

supervision of 1 Coordinator.

DETAILS OF ALL RESCUED CHILDREN DURING SURVEY

Sl

no Name Age Gender

Reason for

leaving home

Out of home

duration Place State

Type of

Resettlement

01 Ritu Turi

15 Female

Misguided by friends

2days Sundargarh Odisha Institutional

Care

02 Aplonia Kandulna

17 Female

Peer group

influence 2days Sundargarh Odisha

Institutional

Care

03 Samsher Allam

14

Male

City attraction 1day Gaya Bihar Institutional

Care

04 Rafik Raza

11

Male City attraction 1day Gaya Bihar

Institutional

Care

05 Siba Munda

12

Male

Family problem 2days Sundargarh Odisha Institutional

Care

06 Babi Singh

11

Male

Begging purpose 1day Sundargarh Odisha Reunited

with family

07 Sudhir Nayak

13

Male Punishment of

parents 1day Simdega Jharkhand

Institutional

Care

08 Mithun Singh

11

Male

Family problem 2days Unknown Odisha Institutional

Care

09 Asish kumar Sony

16

Male

Work related 2days Sundargarh Odisha Reunited

with family

10 Sagar Badaeki

15

Male

Work related 9months Simdega Jharkhand Food Support

11 Kailsh Kumar Pasi

13

Male

City attraction 1day Sambalpur Odisha Food Support

12 Alok Purva

15

Male

City attraction 1day Sambalpur Odisha Food Support

13 Ranjan Kumar

15

Male

Work related 20days Baisali Bihar Institutional

Care

14 Arpit Nishanta Bilung

13

Male

Education related 1days Simdega Jharkhand Institutional

Care

15 Gourav Horet

14 Male Education related 2days Unknown Jharkhand

Institutional

Care

16 Baby

8mo

nths Female Missing child 1day

Unknown Unknown Institutional

Care

SOME IMPORTANT POINTS OF ALL CONTACTED CHILDREN

Gender wise

category

Issues wise category

category

Education details of children

No of time runaway

Out of home duration

OBSERVATION

1. Most of the children were identified mainly between 9am-2pm and between 3pm-6pm.

2. Majority of the children coming in contact were at platform no-1.

3. No any organization working for betterment of old children.

4. Majority of children who came to contact are belongs to Odisha state.

5. All the stakeholders were supportive and cooperative to our work.

6. Around 50-60 old children were staying at Rourkela railway station.

7. The boys flow was more than girls.

MAJOR FINDINGS

Total 38 children were contacted during 3days of survey.

Out of the total 38 children rescued 26 children belonged to Odisha, 9 children were from Jharkhand, 2

children were Bihar and 1 child was Unknown respectively.

Out of 38 contacted children 16 children were rescued.

Out of 16 rescued children 11 children were referred to Childline for further care and protection and 2

children were reunited with their families with the knowledge of GRPS and 3 children were provide to

food and ticket support.

Parental status of the children

State wise category of the children

Peak timing of children Mostly children contacted at platform

Base on the total rescue of 16 children in 3 days the average flow estimates to 5 children per day.

The average age group of the contacted children was between 11years -14years and 15 years -18 years.

Most of the contacted children had a complete family background with both parents.

Most of the children came to station for visiting purpose.

14 children were first time run away cases whereas 12 children had runaway for 2nd

& 3rd

time.

All the contacted children had been run away from home since 1-2 days.

ABOUT OLD CHILDREN

Old children, who are staying at the station

premises, are addicted to various kinds of injurious

substances like Gutka, Solution cigarette etc. They

are also involved in various kinds of odd jobs like

sweeping the trains, begging, pick-pocketing, rag

picking working in roadside stalls or repair shops

and restaurants. They are used to travelling from

station to station and cities to cities. At Rourkela

railway station we came across more than 40 Old

children. They are spoiling their precious lives by

taking addiction, accident risk, health problems and

other hazardous jobs. We had interaction 10

children at the station and realized that they are

struggling to survive their life.

AWARENESS & SENSITZATION MEETING WITH RAILWAY WORKERS

We also interacted with different railway workers with an objective to create awareness concerning the children in

difficult situation as well as how they can help them with their little awareness and efforts.

CONCLUSION

Station Manager, Police Inspector of GRP and RPF, Chief Ticket Inspector, Vendors, Coolies and other Stakeholders

also feel the need of something in line of Project Rakshyak to help these children for which they extended their full

support and cooperation during our survey.

CWC & Childline members who supported us in resettlement of the rescued children and helped us reach to the

objectives of this baseline survey, are willing SOCH to start project Rakhsyak in Rourkela as soon as possible.

Most importantly it was observed that the flow of new and fresh children is approximately 5 children per day which is

quite high when compared with Bhubaneswar, Khurda & Puri where average the inflow of runaway/missing/abandoned

children is 2-3 children per day.

“We hope that this study will be an eye opener to the multiple problems of health,

education and protection faced by street children at the Rourkela railway station will

have their rights realized as other citizens.”

Rourkela Survey Team