Many subway passengers in Beijing noticed something distinctly
different about their journey yesterday.
The beggars and illegal hawkers were mostly gone.
An official two-month campaign began yesterday to weed out
"uncivilized" behavior on the subway environment, used by some 1.5
million commuters a day.
"The beggars and peddlers on trains have badly disturbed the
environment and impacted passengers' mood," reads a circular issued
by Beijing subway carrier.
Enforcement groups patrolled the four major subway lines
including Line One and the Loopline.
Anyone caught violating the new rules was to be evicted from the
subway.
Beggars are quite common on the subway lines.
"Honestly speaking, people do show sympathy to those
disadvantageous groups," Bao Xiaohao, a 27-year-old commuter in
Beijing, said.
"But it's really very scary and disgusting to see the explicit
exposure of burn and injured arms sticking out to you."
While some passengers said begging was necessary for survival for
many unfortunate people, others disliked "professional
begging".
Some beggars are in fact swindlers.
Many of them work in pairs, and employed by contractors to beg
for money.
Sources from the public traffic security team affiliated to the
municipal public security bureau acknowledged the practice, but
declined to reveal further details.
Sun Lijie, from Beijing Transit Railway Operation Corporation
said the begging issue was a "dilemma", as subway operators faced
increasing pressure from commuters to do something about the
problem.
Sun said all the company can do is to expel them from the train
stations.
"Due to a lack of enforcement measures and regulations, those
unwanted groups repeatedly return after being cleared out," Sun
said.
"Currently, increasing personnel on patrol to guard the stations
is the only way to tackle this."
Advanced management measures such as limiting riding time on a
single trip was also needed to solve the problem, he said.
(China Daily July 10, 2007)