Registration of Child Care Institutions

Why in news?

The facility of online registration of Child Care Institutions across the country was launched by the Minister of Women & Child Development.

What kind of system is at available at present?

• At present there is a system of manual registration of CCIs followed by States/ UTs due to which there is no national data base on the number of CCIs being registered under the JJ Act in the country.
• Further there is a lack of transparency and it is difficult to monitor the Child Care Intuitions and their functioning due to lack of data available.

New Online Registration system:

• The proposed online registration system will ease the process of registration of CCIs through an online process, end to end Information and Communication Technology enablement and ensure efficient monitoring by Central and State Governments.
• The module for online registration of CCIs has been developed by the WCD Ministry with the assistance of National Informatics Centre.
• This will facilitate and streamline the functioning of State Governments/UT Administrations and set in place a uniform registration process throughout the country.
• The proposed system is in accordance with Rule 21 (12) of Juvenile Justice Central Model Rules 2016 which states that “The Central Government shall facilitate developing a model online system for receipt and processing of applications and grant or cancellation of registration and in the interim the systems existing in the States and Union Territories shall continue”.
• Further, Section 41 (1) and Section 42 of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015 (JJ Act), provides for mandatory registration of all Child Care Institutions with penal provisions in case of non-compliance with imprisonment which may extend to one year or a fine of not less than one lakh rupees or both.
• The States/UTs need to designate one nodal officer at State level and one District level nodal officer in each of the district to make them responsible in the implementation of online registration process.
• Further, the States/UTs shall also designate an officer who shall be the Registration Authority at State/UT level to grant registration.

What will be the impact?

• The online registration will provide a centralized system where all the information will be readily available about the CCIs in the country.
• It will be possible to know on a real time basis as to how many children are available in each CCI, how many are available for adoption, which children need help and what type of assistance needs to be provided to them.
• In the new online registration process there will be transparency in the system now and it will be possible to offer greater care and protection to the children.
• It will promote a uniform system of registration for all Child Care Institutions.

What are the other salient features?

• Some of the salient features of the online system include e-alerts to the applicants and the registration authorities, easy information sharing and online issuance of registration certificates.
• The Organizations willing to run CCIs will be required to register on the portal and submit their application with complete documentation online.

Source: PIB