SC seeks details of Centre’s scheme for Covid orphans

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 1

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to provide details of schemes announced for children, who lost their parents to Covid-19 along with monitoring mechanisms.

Last week, the Centre had announced that PM Cares will contribute through a specially designed scheme to create a corpus of Rs 10 lakh for each child when he or she reaches 18 years of age.

The top court, which had earlier taken suo motu cognisance of spread of Covid-19 in children homes, was hearing an application filed by amicus curiae Gaurav Agrawal seeking identification of orphaned children due to Covid-19 or otherwise and providing them immediate relief.

A Bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao directed states and Union Territories to appoint nodal officers of level of Secretary or Joint Secretary who will interact with its amicus curiae Gaurav Agrawal for providing all information on orphans, their identification and about the welfare measures for them.

It posted the mater for hearing on Monday when it would take up matters related to Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar and Jharkhand.

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) told the court that data of 9,346 affected children have been uploaded on Bal Swaraj portal. This includes 1,742 children who lost both parents, 7,464 now in a single-parent household, 140 abandoned between March 2020 and May 29, 2021.

In an affidavit filed in the top court, the NCPCR said out of these children, 1,224 were now living with a guardian, 985 with a family member not designated as a legal guardian, while 6,612 were living with a single parent. Besides, 31 children have been sent to the special adoption agency, it submitted.

A six-step scheme has been devised to monitor the well-being of children orphaned due to Covid-19 or those who lost one parent, the NCPCR informed the court.

The maximum number of orphaned and abandoned children was seen in Madhya Pradesh, where 318 children were orphaned and 104 were abandoned, while UP recorded the highest number of children who lost one parent — 1,830 children are now living in single-parent households after the death of a parent due to Covid-19.