Hyderabad: The telangana state government is set to follow in the footsteps of Kerala and launch a scheme for the care of abandoned infants. Under this scheme, cradle booths will be set up in all districts and women will be persuaded to leave their unwanted infants at these booths rather than by the roadside.
The state government plans to send a team of officials to Kerala to study the implementation of the scheme and make recommendations regarding its adoption in Telangana.
The issue came up for discussion on Wednesday, wh-en M. Ramachandra Reddy, the Chairman of the Cen-tral Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) Advis-ory Committee, met with Tummala Nageswara Rao, the Minister for Women and Child Welfare, at the Secretariat. Mr Rao expr-essed concern at the frequency of incidents of wo-men abandoning their unwanted infants near garbage bins and at isolated places in the state. He said that the Ammathottil (Malayalam for cradle) Scheme was successfully being implemented in Kerala since 2002, and asked if a similar scheme could be introduced in Telangana.
Mr Reddy brought it to the notice of the state government that there were gross irregularities in the adoption of children from private childcare centres in the state. He asked for the norms to be made stricter to put an end to such practices. He said that over 20,000 adoption applications were pending, and he urged the state govern-ment to expedite the processing of those applications.
Mr Rao informed him that the state government had introduced an online portal for the submission of adoption applications, to ensure transparency. He said that the government planned to set up 21 new child care centres across the state in the near future.
Mr Reddy pointed out that the online process was getting delayed due to delays in the issuance of approvals by the offices of the registrar and sub-registrar. The minister assured him that he would soon meet with the registrars and sub-registrars to find out the reasons behind the delay and resolve the issue at the earliest.
The minister also informed him that the government planned to set up a State Adoption Resource Authority (SARA) for effective implementation of institutional and legalised adoptions of orphan children, to ensure their safety and well-being.
Mr Rao said that the government would constitute a task force under SARA, to conduct periodic inspections of all child care centres, to keep irregularities in check. He said that the adoption process would be cleared by the government within two months of completion of all formalities such as submission of Aadhar card, income proof, address proof.
