NEW DELHI: To boost the declining adoption rate in the country, the Ministry of Women and Child Development has decided to put an end to its ‘pick and choose’ policy while allowing parents to adopt a child and decided that parents can only accept or reject a child which is offered by the national adoption body.
Earlier, parents were given three children as options before adoption.
The new rule will come into force from May 1.
As per the present rules, parents will have to get themselves registered with the government’s adoption portal, CARINGS, which will then refer up to three children with the parents accepting one. But with the new rules in place, this practice will end and parents will be referred only one child.
“The rate of adoption was very slow and the children would remain in the referral cycle for a very long time. Under the new method, we will be able to refer all children in our adoption pool to an equal number of prospective parents,” an official from the Child Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) said.
With the new rules in place, parents can participate in a maximum of three rounds of referral before they move to the bottom of the waiting list. In each of these rounds, they will be sent a profile of a different child.
However, parents will not be able to choose from the three children referred to them in these rounds which will be held after a gap of at least 90 days.
Moreover, 48 hours time will be given to parents to accept a child from the time the child’s profile is sent to them and then another 20 days to complete formalities before an application is filed in a court to seek an adoption order.
CARA has been grappling to meet the huge demand for adoption.
As many as 15,000 parents are registered with its portal while there are just 1,800-2,000 children in its adoption pool.