In a bid to rehabilitate orphans staying in Children Care Institutes (CCIs) in the national Capital to their native states, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) conducted an investigation which revealed that 2,069 such children are living in different CCIs in Delhi.

The CCI functions under the umbrella of Child Welfare Committee (CWC). Currently there are nine CWC located in different parts of the city under which 94 CCIs are working. However, the investigation conducted by NCPCR in 2017-18 revealed that out of total 94 CCIs, 30 of them are operating without any registration under Juvenile Justice Act while 64 are registered.

Yashwant Jain, Member of NCPCR told The Statesman, “We have 798 children from Bihar, followed by Uttar Pradesh (686), Jharkhand (132), West Bengal (28) and Madhya Pradesh (73).”

“Many children,” Jain said, “have been rehabilitated to their native states but we are yet to ascertain the exact figure.” As per the data, in south Delhi, there are 16 CCIs. In north and northwest, there are 12 CCIs, east and northeast have 5 CCIs, outer jurisdiction has 22 CCIs, southwest jurisdiction has 7 CCIs, while southeast jurisdiction has 17 CCIs. However, the chairperson of CWCs in central Delhi and New Delhi, Railways and west Delhi remained non-committal.

It is yet to ascertain particular number of kids from different states in particular CWCs and CCIs; NCPCR has claimed it is taking immediate action to rehabilitate such kids to their native place. Jyoti Rathi, Member of Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights told The Statesman that; “From June 2017 to 2018, 1496 children were produced and 462 children who were found native of different states were restored out of 1426 total restoration of kids.”

The NCPCR has also urged all the states across country to submit a report about their number of registered and unregistered CCIs and also attach the number of children belong to different states in their CCIs. Requesting anonymity, a member of NCPCR told The Statesman, “Kerala was found having more than 28,000 children from different states living in their CCIs and probably they have most number of unregistered CCIs.

Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Hyderabad, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have the most number of children from different states.” Contrary to this, Assam, Goa, Telangana and Sikkim have claimed that they have no unregistered CCIs and also no such children which belong to different states.