For farmers protesting at Tikri, a makeshift shelter with 800 beds, washrooms

Keeping in thoughts the rising demand for higher sleeping preparations amid the chilly, UK-based NGO Khalsa Aid has constructed an 800-bed semi-permanent shelter on the Tikri border, with 60% beds for males and 40% for girls.
Khalsa Aid India director Amarpreet Singh mentioned an identical 600-bed shelter was first constructed on the Singhu border, made from tarpaulin and different waterproof materials.
Several singers and actors joined the farmers protesting at Tikri on Saturday. (Express picture by Gajendra Yadav)
“At Tikri, we had earlier made a shelter for women but the space was not enough. The demand was rising… At Singhu, we had created a shelter by waterproofing normal tents but that was not very successful. There were issues of leakage when it rained so we felt the need for something more durable. So we’ve used Clearspan tents,” he mentioned.
The industrial tent expertise makes use of aluminium frames to assist tent materials. The ground of the shelter has been coated with plywood.
“We constructed this keeping many things in mind. People from villages who come to visit the protest site, for example, had no place to stay. Hotels nearby cost a lot so that’s not an option for everyone. There are many old people who are not able to climb onto trolleys because of joint pain, so that was also a concern,” mentioned Singh.
Covering an space of 300×100 ft, the shelter will even have 50 washrooms for girls and 50 for males. “There will be a partition between the area for men and women. These areas are covered by 20 CCTV cameras too for safety. We have also arranged 10 washing machines and 30 desi geysers for everyone’s convenience,” he mentioned.
The development began about 4 days in the past, and the shelter will grow to be operational by Sunday.

“It has cost us around Rs 10 lakh, which we spent from the donations we received. We had given the contract for construction to a local Delhi-based company, which took care of raw material and labourers,” mentioned Singh.
Meanwhile, a number of artists from the Punjabi and Hindi music and movie trade together with singers Harbhajan Mann and Jazzy B, and actors Swara Bhaskar and Aarya Babbar joined the protesting farmers on the Tikri border Saturday to lend their assist.
At the ‘Artists with Farmers’ occasion, they expressed their solidarity with songs, poems and speeches and urged them to proceed the wrestle till their calls for are met.
Popular singer Harbhajan Mann was amongst those that acquired the loudest cheers from the protesters. “Today the protest has reached such a stage that if someone doesn’t write four lines about the protest and mark their attendance here, they feel they have committed a big crime,” Mann mentioned in Punjabi.
He additionally mentioned, “It is the right of every artist to raise their voice in support of the farmers”.