NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday observed that the Centre’s welfare schemes should cover all children orphaned in the Covid-19 pandemic. The observation came from a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and Aniruddha Bose while hearing a suo motu case on the condition of children in institutional care during the pandemic.
The bench noted that government-run schemes such as PM-Cares Fund, which proposed a corpus of Rs 10 lakh for each children till they turn 23, covered only those who became oprhans after losing their parents.
The court said it is studying how the children could be given immediate benefits. “The order we passed covers all children who became orphans during this period and not just due to deaths due to Covid-19.”