PM Care Support To Be Given To 3,258 Children Orphaned During Pandemic

The Central government on Friday said that 3,258 applications out of 5,714 received for the PM CARES for Children scheme have been approved. The scheme is for supporting children orphaned during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Smriti Irani, the Women and Child Development Minister informed the Lok Sabha that applications for such cases are uploaded on the portal by state and union territory governments. In a written reply, Irani said that as of December 8, 5,714 applications have been uploaded on the portal and 3,258 have been approved by the district magistrate. 542 applications are pending for approval.

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As per reports, the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) informed that 11,331 adoptions have taken place so far through the Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS) portal between 2018-2019 to 2020-21.

Under the PM CARE for Children scheme, each child will be given ₹ 2000 for their non-institutional care and ₹ 2,160 will be given for the ones living in Child Care Institutions every month. Smriti Irani said that in the past three years, an amount of ₹ 2189.76 crore has been given under the PM CARES for children scheme to a total of 2,30,063 beneficiaries

Responding to another question, she said the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has received 438 complaints through POCSO e-Box during the last three years and the current year 2021-22.

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Earlier this year the Supreme Court gave directions on a suo motu petition over the illegal adoption of children orphaned by COVID-19. The top court asked all the states and Union Territories to take stringent actions against individuals and NGOs who are indulging in the crime.

A bench headed by Justice Aniruddha Bose and L Nageswara Rao directed, "The state governments/Union Territories are directed to take action against those NGOs/individuals who are indulging in illegal adoptions.”

During the second wave of COVID-19, many children were reported to have lost one or both parents. Some social media posts also started circulating where people put up information about such children for adoption purposes, the Supreme Court was informed about the same.