BHUBANESWAR: Six years after it first counted the number of orphans and children with single parents, the state government has planned to carry out a similar drive this year to bring such children under its social security net.
Releasing detailed guidelines for collection of data for the purpose, the Women and Child Development department on Tuesday asked all collectors to begin a survey on orphans and single parent children living in a vulnerable condition. The survey will be carried out by anganwadi workers of every district.
In a notification to the collectors, the department stated that the survey will identify all children in need of care and protection (orphans and children with single parent) and bring them all into a protective network through government-run schemes.
“Children, who have lost their parents, and have single bread-earning parents are special for the state for whom various programme are being implemented including institutional and non-institutional care provisions with the establishment of various structures,” the department said.
It has set a target group for the survey under which, an orphan child is one without biological parents or adoptive parents and a single parent child is one living only with mother or a child living with father having disabilities above 40 pc or suffering from chronic disease and unable to earn for the family.
After the survey, the Odisha State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (OSCPCR) has been asked to submit the final data to the department by September 4.
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the OSCPCR had carried out a drive in 2019 and identified 2.3 lakh children who were without parents and of them, 33,000 were orphans. Of them, 8,418 were housed in 238 child care institutions (CCIs) and the rest were in foster care and some adopted.
According to a report of Bal Swaraj portal of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, 48,209 children of Odisha lost either a parent or the primary caregiver and 2,077 lost both their parents due to Covid-19 or some other disease or reason between April 1, 2020, and September 15, 2021. Odisha is one of the top five states in India which has the highest number of such children.