The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Centre and state governments to think about converting vacant government houses into night shelters for the homeless, The Times of India reported. This would also help the government save money as they will not have to construct new night shelters, the top court said.

A bench of Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta noted that the governments had failed to build these temporary homes for about 10 lakh homeless people in urban areas.

The governments of Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal agreed with the judges’ proposal, and said they had already identified several government buildings that can be used for this purpose.

There are 17.73 lakh homeless people in India, according to the 2011 census, of whom 65.3% are in Uttar Pradesh, Maharastra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.