India, March 3 -- In a move to curb begging, the Delhi Government has trained to more than 400 beggars skilled and rehabilitated in the past one-and-a-half years. The majority of them are now working as street vendors and are linked to welfare schemes.

Under the SMILE scheme, the Delhi Government trained around 400 panhandlers and identified nearly 4,000 people engaged in begging across the city, of whom about 21 per cent were elderly, an official said.

The process began with NGOs identifying beggars and shifting them in eight selected "rain baseras" run by the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board, where they underwent medical check-ups, basic grooming and counselling, she said.

"Most of them had slipped into begging due to poverty, a...