BENGALURU: The Directorate of Municipal Administration has issued a circular directing all urban local bodies to form Women and Child Protection Watch Committees under the chairmanship of the mayor or chairperson.
The committees will include elected representatives, concerned officials, social workers and child representatives. They will be responsible for ensuring the effective implementation of child protection laws and safeguarding children’s rights.
The circular comes after years of demand from child rights activists and the Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KSCPCR) to establish such watch committees at the municipal corporation and town panchayat levels.
The directive assigns them 16 responsibilities, including ensuring 100% birth registration and issuance of birth certificates for all children, and full immunisation coverage for children aged 0–16 years. The committees must also ensure 100% attendance in anganwadis, schools and colleges, with particular focus on girls.
A key responsibility is to ensure that school dropout rates are brought down to zero. The committees have also been tasked with monitoring and preventing child marriages, child abuse, child labour, begging among children, and malnutrition. They must also keep track of cases of missing children.
The circular further directs municipal corporations to prepare a child status report for every ward, based on data such as the number of children aged 0–18, school attendance, out-of-school children, child labour cases, children with special needs and children in distress.
The watch committees, along with municipal corporations and town panchayats, have been instructed to submit quarterly reports to the directorate on the implementation of these measures. The reports will be reviewed by district-level officials, and action may be taken against authorities if lapses in implementation are found.