When Shreya Roy applied to adopt an orphan in Delhi in 2012, she was told the wait could be at least three years – if she was lucky.

“We called about 25 children’s adoption homes in the city. They kept saying, ‘There are no babies,’” said Roy, 35, a public relations professional. “It just did not make sense. Just look around – there are so many abandoned and poor babies.”

Roy’s frustration reflects what one government official calls India’s “shameful” record of adoption: with more than 30 million orphans, according to one estimate, only about 2,500 were adopted last year – down from 5,700 four years ago – as prospective parents are stymied by complicated rules, endless delays, overcautious bureaucracy and illegal trafficking.

Now, officials like Maneka Gandhi, the minister for women and child welfare, want to change that. “People have to wait for three to four years to adopt. That is inexcusable,” she said. “I want to overhaul the system so it takes not more than four months to adopt.”

Gandhi’s team is now simplifying the rules, setting an online application tracking system, shedding excessive bureaucratic caution and launching a new foster-care programme.

“Earlier, the attitude was if a child got adopted before four years, there must have been something wrong,” Gandhi said. “So they would look for ways to make the rules tighter.”

People have to wait for three to four years to adopt. That is inexcusable Maneka Gandhi, minister for women and child welfare

But reform may not come easy, particularly with foreign adoptions. The number of adoptions by foreigners fell from 628 to 271 in the past four years because the government’s priority is to find Indian parents first. India also wants to limit foreign adoptions to less than 20% of the total.

Earlier last month, a parliament panel killed a government proposal to boost foreign adoption, saying that option must be explored only when there is a problem finding suitable parents within India.

Observers say there are fewer children coming into licensed adoption agencies because of a thriving illegal market that siphons off abandoned infants from hospitals directly to couples. Those who try to adopt legally face long, frustrating waits. Some lose patience and give up. Others opt for surrogacy, an expensive but emerging trend among the affluent middle classes here. Or they bribe an official or call a VIP to jump the line.“This is why agencies offer foreigners older children or those with disabilities,” said Lorraine Campos, assistant director of Palna, one of the oldest adoption homes in the capital. “Indians don’t like to adopt them. They ask for healthy babies that are about six months old or so. Even a minor disability is a no-no for Indian parents.”

But Campos says the number of infants coming to the adoption homes have dropped sharply in the past four years. They disappear from the hospital itself, with the active connivance of doctors and nurses, she said.

The decline in adoption is coinciding with waning social and caste taboos about adoptions of orphans among middle-class couples in Indian cities, analysts say. The drop is also pushing some agencies to shut down.

A nun assists orphans with their studies at Shishu Bhavan, orphanage for discarded babies in Ahmedabad. Photograph: Sam Panthaky/Getty

There is no estimate of how big the illegal market for adoption is, officials say.

“A large number of children go missing every year in India, and the number of infants is huge,” said Bhuwan Ribhu, a child rights activist with the Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which teamed up with police in Delhi last year to bust illegal children’s homes. “It shows that there is a big illegal adoption market.”

Surveillance camera footage installed at hospitals and crowded train stations have in the past three years shown images of infants being stolen in big cities like Delhi and Mumbai.

Official adoption numbers may also be low because many Indians who adopt from within their extended family networks do not register.

“So we really do not know how many orphans there are in India, or how many adoptions. There is a data vacuum,” said Vinita Bhargava, author of a book on adoption.

Frequent scandals involving adoption agencies selling children secretly to parents, sometimes to foreigners, have also made the government wary of foreign adoption.

Another hurdle is the lack of clear guidelines here to regulate foreigners adopting children directly from biological parents in India without going through formal adoption agencies, said lawyer Karan Thukral. “The lack of legal clarity means such adoptions become vulnerable to delays, harassment and corruption,” Thukral said.

It is just a matter of patience, you wait it out no matter how frustrating and hopeless it seems Shreya Roy

“At present, we are concerned with the fate of the adopted child in the US. What will be the status of the child there?” the Delhi high court said in January asking officials to study adoption law in the United States.

One of the cases that the court was hearing involved Promila Massey, 52, who works at a used car company in Laurel, Maryland.

Massey cleared the adoption requirements in the US and came to India to adopt a nine-year-old girl in 2012 directly from a friend. The handing-over ceremony was attended by family members, friends and a pastor, she recalled. She then registered the adoption with the local office.

When Massey began the process of making a passport for the girl, she was told she needed a “no objection certificate” from India’s adoption authorities.

That certificate still has not come, she said. She went to the high court later that year.

“It has been three years and my daughter is still stuck in India with her aunt. I have begged the officers, the court judge to let me have my daughter, but the case just drags on,” Massey said. “She is growing up fast. Time is flying. I wanted to give her a good life here. But now I don’t know when I can have her.”

For Roy, the long wait finally paid off. She and her husband got a 15-month-old child last year.

“It is just a matter of patience, you wait it out no matter how frustrating and hopeless it seems,” Roy said.

This article appeared in Guardian Weekly, which incorporates material from the Washington Post