NT NETWORK
PANAJI
The Department of Women and Child Development has failed to crackdown on illegal NGOs, dealing with child welfare in the state, as no survey of them could be carried out by it owing to the lack of staff.
As per the official record, as of now 77 child care institutions (CCIs) are functioning in the state, of which six are not registered under the Juvenile Justice Act.
Stating that there are 71 registered CCIs in the state, an official felt that there could be around 35-36 CCIs, which are run illegally with national as well international funding.
There is lack of staff to undertake mapping exercise, which would have given the exact number of illegally operated CCIs in the state, the official said, adding however, officials at the time of renewal of licence carries out review of the standards of care, protection, rehabilitation and reintegration services and management of the institutions as per the laid down rules.
As per the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, which was implemented across the nation in January 2015, all the state run CCIs and orphanages are supposed to get registered with the department.
The department had earlier made a list of the CCIs operating in the state, and sent notices to 12 CCIs, which had not registered with the department, of which six have fulfilled the criteria and were registered, and reports on other six are awaited.
A senior official at the department said that so far, only six child care institutions are found to have not registered, and added that some of them are not having proper documents while others lack minimum standards for care and protection of children, health, education, lodging facilities, vocational facilities and rehabilitation, needed for registration.
“We have directed the taluka level child development project officer to submit an inspection report of these institutions to take a final call on whether to grant or reject the permission,” the official said adding that there is no provision in the Act to impose penalty.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Women and Child Development has recently written to the state government to initiate suitable action against the unregistered child care institutions for late registration as per section 41 of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.
It has further asked to substantiate the report of Child Line Foundation, which has found only 35 child care institutions operating in the state with proper registration as a part of their nationwide mapping exercise, so that children residing in unregistered homes may be shifted to other registered institutions.
In order to simplify and bring transparency in registration of a child care institution, the Ministry of Women and Child Development, is in the process of developing a model online system for receipt and processing of applications for registration, and grant or cancel registration.