India / Over 1 lakh kids orphaned or lost a parent since April 2020: NCPCR to SC

New Delhi: More than 100,000 children lost one or both their parents during the first and second wave of Covid-19 pandemic across the country. This information was disclosed by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) to the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

The commission, which has been running a dedicated website called Bal Swaraj for collecting data on orphans and children who lost either of their parents submitted an affidavit in the top court through advocate Swarupama Chaturvedi that 101,032 children were abandoned, became orphans or lost one of their parents due to Covid-19 or other reasons between April 1, 2020 and August 23, 2021.

Of this, the commission said, there were 8,161 orphans, 396 children were abandoned and 92,475 lost one of their parents.

The affidavit specified that the cause of death included non-Covid-19 reasons as well. It said, “The data of children uploaded on the Bal Swaraj portal by the states/ UTs comprises both categories of children, wherein the child has lost both or either of the parent to Covid-19 disease or otherwise from April 2020 onwards.”

The affidavit came in a suo motu petition being heard by the Supreme Court which is monitoring steps to ensure providing food, shelter and education to children abandoned or orphaned due to the pandemic. The court is being assisted by amicus curiae (friend of Court) advocate Gaurav Agrawal.

This is the third affidavit filed by NCPCR in the matter. In its earlier affidavit providing information received from states up to July 23, the commission presented a figure of 6,855 orphans, 68,218 children who lost one parent, and 247 abandoned children.

On July 27, when the court last heard the matter, West Bengal was pulled up for not being upfront about the number of orphans and children who lost one parent during the pandemic. The state reported a low figure of 27 orphans, three abandoned children, and 1,020 children who lost one of their parents which the court found “not credible”.

The present affidavit of NCPCR showed a realistic picture in West Bengal with 308 orphans and 6,270 children who lost either of the parents, besides two children found abandoned from April 2020 till August 23.

Maharashtra is the only state in the country which has recorded a five digit figure of children affected during the reporting period with 470 children orphaned and 14,925 children who lost either of their parents, taking the total number of affected children to 15,401 (including six abandoned children).