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Rights panel launches portal for individuals, orgs to identify street children
It provided details about the portal in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court in response to a suo motu petition for rescue and rehabilitation of street children
NEW DELHI: The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has launched a portal to enable individuals and organisations to identify, help children living on the streets and connect, collate data, and collaborate for their rehabilitation.
It provided details about the portal in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court in response to a suo motu petition pending in the court for helping rescue and rehabilitate the street children.
The panel said street children can now be identified by any individual, NGO, social organisation, or academic institution, through the portal for rehabilitating them. It earlier operated a portal, where states and Union territories (UTs) updated information about such children. This portal has so far received details of only 17,914 street children.
A bench of justices L Nageswara Rao and BR Gavai on Monday observed the number of children identified by states and UTs is paltry. It wondered why the reporting of these children was low despite NCPCR having estimated the number of these children to be around 1.5 to 2 million.
An NGO Save the Children study two years back identified nearly 200,000 street children in just four states, including 70,000 in Delhi.
The bench told states and UTs represented before it to ask their officers to be vigilant and take steps.
Additional solicitor general KM Nataraj, who represented NCPCR, informed the court the new portal link will open the option for all citizens and NGOs to provide details about such children. He added states and UTs identified street children as children living on the streets with families, children who stay during the day on streets and return at night to nearby hutments/slums, and children living on the streets without any support.
NCPCR’s affidavit said the new portal has integrated NGOs, social, and academic organisations to get involved in reuniting children with their families and to link benefits under various schemes to them.
Advocate Gaurav Agrawal, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae, said the new portal will help map street children. He added district child protection units can access the information provided before verifying and uploading it.
The NCPCR in February prepared guidelines for states and UTs for the rescue and rehabilitation of street children. This included identifying hot spots in each district, where children on the streets are generally found, their rescue, and production before child welfare committees.
The guidelines required respective governments to provide basic food, clothing, medical treatment, counselling, and health check-ups for such children. They needed them to place the children in shelter homes or reunite them with their families, guardian, or relatives.
The NCPCR asked authorities to prepare a care plan for every rescued child and link them with government schemes/benefits for financial assistance, and necessary follow-up.
Delhi and Tamil Nadu informed the court they have brought out policies modelled on the NCPCR guidelines. NCPCR said it was yet to receive copies of these policies.
The court directed the states to provide their policy documents to NCPCR and made the panel’s scheme applicable to all states and UTs till they come out with their own schemes.
