NEW DELHI: “I sleep under a thin blanket that I share with five other friends. If it gets stolen, we know our only respite will be burning scrap to keep ourselves warm, but the fire won’t last the whole night,” says a doleful 13-year-old who has come to a room in south-east Delhi with 12 others to pick up jackets being given by an NGO. Winter is tough for these street children. Out on the streets, they cope as best they can with the frigid temperatures, perhaps by numbing themselves with narcotics, and fighting off sexual predators, often unsuccessfully.Children who work as rag pickers during the day turn their sacks into shields against the cold at night. “We get into the sacks and lightly secure them at the top. It doesn’t let the cold get in,” smiles a 16-year-old. “Some children also pay money to the kabadiwallahs they work for to be allowed to sleep under the cardboard boxes.” Many huddle with stray dogs, each deriving warmth from the other. A number of kids collect plastic bottles, polythene bags, twigs and leaves to build fires, sometimes desperately feeding them with their own ragged clothes.There are five shelters, or rain baseras, among the 204 across the city, earmarked for children. These have a capacity to accommodate 510 kids, a negligible number when a 2017 study reckoned that Delhi has over 100,000 street children. Many kids, however miserable, avoid the baseras having heard about the minor criminal activities at these centres, such as fights and theft.According to Jyoti, who heads Badhte Kadam, a project mentored by NGO CHETNA- Childhood Enhancement through Training and Action, in the frantic fight against the cold the children turn to substance abuse. Inhalants, injectables, pharmaceutical sedatives and medical opioids are surreptitiously obtained at drug stores at hiked prices. Insidiously, their own employers often supply them the narcotics for a price. As a 15-year-old revealed, “We work all day, and once we are through for the day, our employer-shopkeeper lets us watch films and gives us narcotics, charging us for both.”If detected, police often close down these shops, but it’s back to business in a couple of days, say the children. Sanjay Gupta, director of CHETNA, says the lacuna is the mutually exclusive roles of the different agencies. “Police and the Narcotics Control Bureau can prevent this abuse only if they join hands. At the moment, there is no coordination required to solve this problem,” says Gupta. The problem has assumed such a magnitude that one of the five rain baseras meant for children is called “Drug Rehabilitation Centre”.There is also the danger that children dulled by opiates are unable to fend off predators. “The children are not aware of what is going on around them. Adults frequently promise the youngsters relief from the cold and then take sexual advantage of them. The next morning, the kids either don’t remember or if they do, are too frightened to go to the cops,” points out Shambhu, editor of Balaknama, a newspaper run by street children.At CHETNA’s gathering in south-east Delhi, the children perform a dance that they have been rehearsing for a while. Gupta nods appreciatively and remarks, “Dance works like a therapy for these children. It helps them curb their craving for substances.” A little later, as a 15-year-old boy lines up to collect his jacket, he cheerfully says, “We only hope to be able to work and contribute to our family income without facing trouble in this weather.”CHETNA has managed to collect 500 jackets from donors for distribution. But its target is 5,000. Those willing to alleviate the misery of the kids out in the cold can contact the NGO.