NEW DELHI: Around 50,000 street children in the city will get their Aadhaar card in the next six months.
An NGO, a postman or a certified insurance agent will help a child in getting an Aadhaar card to enable them to take admission in schools and access government health services.
The apex body for child rights - National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) in collaboration with the NGO, Save the Children, today launched the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in the presence of Bollywood actress Dia Mirza, who is also an Ambassador of the NGO.
The "SOP for Care and Protection of Children in Street Situations" lays down a sequence of actions to be taken for restoration and rehabilitation of street children, which
include getting them Aadhaar cards, health insurance, bank accounts and financial sponsorship for families to help meet medical and nutritional requirements of a child.
"We had been working on these SOPs for the past two years. It is important to understand the legal rights of children and, therefore, this SOP is a dream come true. We have decided to roll out this programme from Delhi," NCPCR Chairperson Stuti Kacker said.
The SOP will be application for street children all over the country.
An estimated 50,000 Delhi street children have been selected for Aadhaar card registration on a pilot basis. The NGO aims to cover such children in five states in the first two years.
Highlighting the need to focus on children in urban areas, Save the Children chief Harpal Singh said "By 2030, we will be 40 per cent plus in urban world. The reality is that many of the children in our street are far worse off than their rural cousins.
"In a rural area, because the setting is small, children have an identity because everyone knows them. In an urban setting they are completely anonymous."
Street children have been broadly divided into four categories -- abandoned or orphaned child, missing or runaway child on street, street connected child/community child on the street and child begging on the street.
A certified insurance agent will link a street child with a health insurance scheme after obtaining address verification and other details from the Child Welfare Committee (CWC).
A child above the age of 10 years will also be assisted in opening and operating a bank account.
In a situation where a street child has a family, efforts will also be made to bring it under a sponsorship programme to help them meet medical, nutritional, educational and other needs of the child, as per the provisions of Juvenile Justice Act 2015.
Children under six years of age will also be linked to an Anganwadi to address their nutritional requirements.