Survey finds many shortcomings in their performance

A pan-India survey of childcare institutions (CCI) conducted by the Centre has highlighted poor safety and security measures, inadequate monitoring of these facilities, and a lack of effort to trace parents of missing children sent to these homes.

The full report of the survey titled ‘Mapping and Review Exercise of Child Care Institutions’, conducted between December 2015 and March 2017, was recently made public by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD).

Some of the findings of this exercise were shared last year before the Supreme Court, which took suo motu cognisance of rampant child abuse at a shelter in Muzaffarpur in Bihar.

The detailed report shows that only 46.7% of the total homes had adequate number of caregivers per child and only 28.7% centres were able to tend to inmates showing signs of hunger or illness and 65.9% of homes were able to actively supervise children under trauma, according to the report titled ‘Mapping and Review Exercise of Child Care Institutions’.

The report also says that the lack of infrastructure facilities is “glaring” and finds that more than 1,000 homes did not have a dormitory for children, raising questions about sleeping arrangements made for them.

The report finds that even though there are several mechanisms for monitoring, regular inspections of these shelters were not being carried out.