To speed up the process of adoption in the country so as to ensure orphan children get homes without much delay, the Centre has decided to convert every child-care institution into an adoption agency.
“This decision is extremely important as it will bridge the huge gap between the number of available children and prospective parents, as more children will be available for adoption at any given time,” said a senior official from the Ministry of Woman and Child Development (WCD).
According to official data available with the WCD ministry, there are maximum 800 children available with the adoption agencies in comparison to the waiting list of over 9,000 parents.
The new guidelines, notified last month, mandate all the Child Care Institutions or Children’ Homes to be registered with Central or State Adoption Resource Authority (CARA).
“This gives every institution the status of an adoption agency. All non-compliant institutions will be forced to close down,” he said
The Centre has been worried about the poor situation of adoptions in the country, which have been showing a decline in the past few years. Domestic adoptions in India have nearly halved from 5,693 in 2010 to 2,503 in 2014 and similarly international adoptions have come down from 628 in 2010-11 to 300 in 2014-15.
In a meeting with the states and union territories on Tuesday, WCD minister Maneka Gandhi will push for increasing the adoption rates in the country, which have been on a down slide for the last few years.
“This will be her second address to stakeholders from states and UTs this year, where she also plans to familiarize them with the new adoption guidelines,” said an official.
“The minister plans to track adoption figures state-wise, and also plans to take the stakeholders to task, if figures don’t pick up,” he said.
In the day-long workshop, the WCD ministry plans to discuss the various technicalities of the revised framework on adoption.
The official said that there are a large number of unregistered Child Care Institutions running in the country and the state governments will be given strict instructions to bring them under the legal ambit.
Veerendra Mishra, Secretary CARA said that the time taken in the entire adoption process (between five to six months), might remain the same even under the new guidelines due to shortage of children and the legal aspects involved but it will leave no room for any kind of unfair practices.
“It will be difficult to tell the time taken as we have long waiting list and the children are less. It is 1:10 ratio. The new process is simpler, transparent and fair as the entire process is recorded online. The agencies cannot refer a child to a parent. It is all automatic,” Mishra said.