Child Adoption Process being simplified and made online

The Minister of Women & Child Development Smt. Krishna Tirath has stressed upon simplified administrative and legal process for adoption. Reacting to Media on a recently held workshop on Inter-country adoption in the national capital the Minister said that pro-children procedural simplifications are being carried out by concerned authority under the guidance and supervision of her ministry. She said that ‘Guidelines Governing Adoption of Indian Children 2011’ was notified by Govt. of India on 27.6.2011 for expeditious and child friendly adoption process of orphan, abandoned and surrendered children. 

A national workshop was held in Vigyan Bhavan on 4th August 2011 to discuss implementation of the new adoption guidelines and provide basic orientation to various stakeholders. Around 120 participants from different parts of the country including officials representing 18 State Governments participated and contributed to the discussion. There was positive response to the new adoption guidelines, which contained relevant features from the Juvenile Justice Act 2000 (amended in 2006) and the Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption ratified by Government of India in the year 2003. 

The participants were given basic orientation about involvement of Child Welfare Committee (CWC) at pre-adoption level to avoid any wrong sourcing of children, that all adoption agencies are to be recognized by state govt. for domestic adoption for a period of five years and adoption agencies dealing with inter-country adoption shall be given permanent recognition by CARA to expedite adoption process. It was explained to all the participants about the benefits of the central system of receiving of adoption dossier at CARA wef. 1.10.2011 in cases of inter-country adoptions. It will result early placement of children, particularly the children having special needs and housed in other institutions. In the new adoption guidelines there is a provision of Adoption Recommendation Committee (ARC) to be constituted at the state level to recommend the cases of inter-country adoption. The State Govt. representatives were urged to take-up immediate steps to constitute the expert body as per direction of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in a recent judgment. All adoptions of such children shall proceed under the JJ Act. 

While CARA recognized adoption agencies are posting regular data on the web-based information system called Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS), it was good to hear from the adoption agencies who volunteered to mentor the Special Adoption Agencies for their capacity building. There was also one presentation by NIC on the updated version of the software, which was highly appreciated by the adoption agencies, and the officials of the State Governments.