Sadly, in relation to begging in India, there is often more than meets the eye. While the poverty is real, begging is quite often carried out in organized gangs. For the privilege of begging in a certain territory, each beggar must had over their takings to the gang's ring leader, who keeps a significant share of it. Quite a bit of welfare work in India has been directed at reducing begging, with varying degrees of success. The most common problem is that beggars are so used to begging that they actually prefer not to work. Many of them also make more money from begging that what they would if they did work.
