20,000 Indian Street Children Being Rehabilitated, But Thousands Yet To Be Identified: NCPCR

Pic courtesy Hindustan Times

New Delhi: The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has identified about 20,000 street children across India so far and is in the process of rehabilitating them.

A web portal named ‘Bal Swaraj’ has been made for street children, where their information can be uploaded and they can be tracked to facilitate their rehabilitation, NCPCR chairperson Priyank Kanoongo told PTI.

According to Kanoongo, there are around 15-20 lakh children living on the streets of India, but rued that states have not been working effectively towards identifying them.

“States are not working as effectively as they must be. We want it to be done as soon as possible. States are being pushed to do it immediately. Madhya Pradesh and some areas of West Bengal have done good work for their rehabilitation, but Delhi and Maharashtra are not doing anything,” he said.

The Supreme Court, which is hearing the matter of identification and rehabilitation of street children, has directed states and Union territories to implement suggestions for formulation of rehabilitation policy.

Three types of street children have been found – those who ran away from their homes or have been abandoned and are living on streets alone; those who are staying with their families on streets; those who live in nearby slums and are on streets during day time and go to their homes at night.

Kannongo explained a rehabilitation plan for all three categories of children which has been chalked out by NCPCR.

“Rehabilitation in all these categories is different, like children who are alone are kept in children homes, those who are with families in slums are restored with their families and linked to welfare schemes and those children living on streets with their families they are mostly those who have moved from villages to cities to look for better opportunities so we try to repatriate them back to their villages and link them to welfare schemes for sustenance,” Kanoongo was quoted as saying.