Paper short abstract:

The study of beggars or the study of urban poor gives the opportunity to understand the new adaptive norms of this people, which they adapted with the issue of survival in a situation of marginal existence.

Paper long abstract:

India has the largest number of poor living in urban areas compared to any other country in the world. High population, density of poor shelter, lack of an adequate supply of water and its poor quality, inadequate or non existence of sanitation facilities, poor drainage and solid waste disposal characterize the living environment of the urban poor. The study of beggars gives an opportunity to gain an understanding the special adaptive norms of a human group dealing with the problem of survival in a condition of marginal existence, often it is said that in India poverty is the chief but not the only cause of beggar hood. Poverty is a situation that gives rise to a feeling of a discrepancy between what it has and what one should have. This article will sincerely attempt to reveal how urban poverty creates cultural constraint in the process of urbanization.

Migration is one of the factors of urban poverty. It contributes large growth of towns and cities. The relation of rural to urban migration is one of the oldest human traditions. Rural migration have been pushed rather than pulled into the urban areas in India. In the present study most of the beggars of kalighat temple kolkata were migrates from different parts of West Bengal or other state like Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Predesh etc. They faced different problem while staying in an urban place. So the article will decipher simultaneously the situation of the baggers and its inevitable effect on the urban centre.