The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Pilot project on child welfare launched

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 15, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Pilot project on child welfare launched

Afshan Yasmeen

Department chooses Yelahanka for the
pilot scheme
Tracking system will help in combating
child trafficking

Bangalore: Five-year-old Soumya, who is enrolled at the Rajanakunte anganwadi centre, Yelahanka, will have a secure future now.

She will not only get educational scholarships and insurance benefits from the State Government, but also medical reimbursement till she is 18. She is one of the 15,000 children in Yelahanka who would be taken care of this way.

All this thanks to the “child tracking system” of the Department of Women and Child Welfare.

To prevent child trafficking and track the overall development of children, the Department of Women and Child Welfare is developing a monitoring system under which the local child development project officials will keep track of a child’s growth from birth till 18 years.

Online record

The department, which has chosen Yelahanka for a pilot project, will keep an online record of all expecting mothers and children enrolled at the 465 anganwadi centres at Yelahanka.

Anganwadi is a State-run pre-nursery school. If it is successful, the scheme would be extended across Karnataka.

The tracking system would help the department combat child trafficking.

Secretary, Women and Child Welfare, Shalini Rajneesh told The Hindu that the local anganwadi centres and officials in charge of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) were preparing a computerised database of all expectant mothers and children in Yelahanka.

ID number

As many as 4,000 girl children are already enrolled under the Bhagyalakshmi scheme and have a unique identification number provided by the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC). This number will be used to track the educational and health record of the children till they attain 18 years.

A similar system will be taken up for other children too, she explained. “The tracking will actually begin from the mothers. The anganwadi centres will follow up the cases of all expectant mothers till childbirth. After nine months, we will check with hospitals in the area, and if a particular woman has not delivered of in any of the hospitals, we will investigate whether it is female foeticide and take up cases against them,” she explained.

The computerised information can be shared by officials from the Child Welfare and Education departments. “If there is a break in the record of any child, the jurisdictional officials will investigate to find out why the child has dropped out of school. They will check whether it is a case of child labour or ill-health, and the issue will be addressed accordingly,” Ms. Rajneesh said.

The system that was initially meant to cover girl children would take care of all children now, she added.

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