NEW DELHI: No regular reports on schools or on distressed children from across the city, no journals being launched, no awareness programmes being ganized—technically, no activity has been witnessed on behalf of DCPCR, the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights, which is the statutory watchdog of the government of Delhi.
It has been over a year since the post of chairman of the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) has been lying vacant. It does not even have a single staff member or any member left in the organisation to keep the commission running, currently.
The absence of the chairman since July 2023 has put the commission on hold. A former member of DCPCR whose tenure got over in December 2023 said that after the previous chairman left, the entire staff had to leave because the staff was hired on a contractual basis and there was no one to renew their contracts.
Following that, the tenure of the members also got over, which is why the office of the DCPCR situated in the ISBT Building Kashmere Gate remained vacant.
Meanwhile, former DCPCR Chairman Anurag Kundu shared that Secretary Women and Child Development (WCD) has been given an interim additional charge of the chairman DCPCR.
Last month, this issue reached the Delhi High Court, which pulled up the Delhi government for prolonged vacancies in the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR).
The court had addressed a plea filed by the National Child Development Council, a child welfare organisation, seeking directions to the Delhi government to expeditiously fill vacant posts of chairperson and members in DCPCR within a fixed time period.
The process of mooting a proposal to invite applications for filling the vacant posts has been pending since August last year. However, the officials concerned conveyed that advertisements could not be issued since the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) was in force. The court then issued notices to the Centre, Delhi government and DCPCR, posting the next hearing to July 16.
Ads could not be issued as MCC was in force
The court had addressed a plea filed by the National Child Development Council, a child welfare organisation, seeking directions to the Delhi government to expeditiously fill vacant posts of chairperson and members in DCPCR within a fixed time period.
The process of mooting a proposal to invite applications for filling the vacant posts has been pending since August last year. However the officials concerned conveyed that advertisements could not be issued since the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) was in force.