539 childcare homes shut for norm violation, most of them in Maharashtra

NEW DELHI: The crackdown on child care institutions (CCI) violating norms has resulted in 539 children homes being shut down across states, with the highest number of these being in Maharashtra. Besides irregularities, the failure of the homes to register with the state as per the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, is one of the major reasons for the ministry of women and child deciding to close these homes.

Of the 539 homes 377 are in Maharashtra, followed by 78 in Andhra Pradesh and 32 in Telangana. In Uttar Pradesh, where shocking cases from Deoria have been in the news, 20 homes have been shuttered.

The Supreme Court had set a deadline for December 31, 2017, for all unregistered CCIs to register. In an attempt to ensure compliance, the WCD ministry kept on sending repeated reminders to the states. However, after cases of abuse came to light in a home in Muzzafarpur in Bihar and then in Deoria, the WCD ministry stepped up action to crackdown on non-compliant unregistered homes.

After cases of abuse in Muzaffarpur and Deoria were unearthed, the WCD ministry had asked the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) to conduct a social audit of all the CCIs and also directed the unregistered institutes to register themselves within two months.

TOI had reported in August that over 1,300 homes — with the maximum in Kerala where the matter is in court — were still out of the registration framework. To bolster the monitoring mechanism the government has also asked state commissions to fill up vacancies in child welfare committees and set up these critical committees that hold magisterial powers.

Parliament was informed in the monsoon session that NCPCR registered 43 complaints regarding child abuse and neglect of children in CCIs over the past three years.