In Delhi, 2,000 kids lost at least one parent to Covid

NEW DELHI: In the first week of April, Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) launched an all-day helpline (9311551393) that people could use to report cases or seek information on child rights. In the three months since, the helpline has received more than 4,500 complaints, of which 2,200 were in the SOS category needing immediate attention of the authorities. The distress calls pertained to children or their families urgently needing essential supplies such as rations or medical assistance, specially Covid-testing help. There were also many reports related to abandoned children.
According to DCPCR, these SOS complaints were immediately responded to by a designated team, which ensured that all these complaints were addressed within 24 hours of their being recorded. Around 85% of the SOS calls were successfully resolved within 24 hours, while the rest were resolved within 72 hours, according to commission officials.

Besides receiving distress calls, DCPCR has employed the helpline to undertake various wellbeing surveys and identification surveys to find children who had lost their parents due to Covid. The data was provided by Delhi government’s health department. DCPCR has been able to trace 2,029 children till date who had either lost one or both parents to the coronavirus.
Of the children traced, 67 have lost both their parents to Covid, whereas 651 children have lost just their mother and 1,311, their father. The details of these children have been shared with the department of women & child development for necessary action and to enrol them as eligible beneficiaries in the scheme notified by Delhi government for children who lose their parents due to coronavirus infection.
Anurag Kundu, chairperson of DCPCR, said that overall in the last three months, the child rights helpline had enabled the commission to reach out to an increasing number of children and their families and also made the panel more accessible to and closer to the children and their families.
The chairperson stressed that it was only a humble beginning and the helpline had a long way to go in firmly establishing itself as a useful and reliable medium for social welfare. Going by the current trend, DCPCR will receive nearly 20,000 complaints this year. This is nearly 1,300% of the average of the past three years and is two-and-half times the complaints the commission has received in 12 years. “This shows how DCPCR has become accessible to ordinary citizens and has earned their trust, " Kundu said.