of the crimes have had monetary involvement. There are more than 200 social offenders of which 150 are involved with bank robbery or looting.

We accept as true that it is not possible to eradicate crime entirely but can be reduced the incidents by at least 50 percent. In this point of view we started our dialogue with the social offenders who wanted to return to the mainstream in association with the local Police personnel, local administration and eminent persons.

Forty-odd social offenders had expressed their desire to embrace the rehabilitation package. As our first endeavor we selected 20 social offenders as first batch and divided them into two self-help groups of 10 in each. They were brought under our savings related micro-credit programme and Rs.1.00 Lac was distributed among them as loan for their income generating activities like carpentry, tailoring, vendoring, meat stall, small business etc., at a large social gathering on 18th July 2001. A negligible percentage is not paying back their loan nor they did leave their old tradition totally. This has been brought to the kind notice of the Police authority.

On fulfilling the demand of the social offenders and with the consent of local police authority, we launched the similar programme for the second batch of 10 social offenders on 2nd December 2001. If it succeeds many more social offenders would certainly able to give up their old tradition to live in a healthy atmosphere – we do at least believe.

But we are in dilemma. In this challenging task of rehabilitation of the social offenders, it is highly required to have a dialogue between the highest level of Judicial personnel, police authority, local administrative institution, eminent social workers, corporate houses, newspapers and visual media etc. on the following points:

I) Most of the social offenders, whom we brought under economic rehabilitation package, are on trial and harsh chances to be accused. In this circumstance our whole efforts would go with the wind if they were convicted.

II) Should SHIS continue this programme unless & until the judicial matter is settled?

There is a great proverb “Crime does pay” – but still we do hope some fruitful solution would certainly come out to save the social offenders from being punished, whom still have the impulse to be in the mainstream of social life.