Child adoption made easier in India

Prospective parents seeking to adopt a child will henceforth get a ready-reckoner in the form of Central Adoption Resource and Guidance System (CARINGS) aimed at facilitating the adoption process.

Launching the CARINGS here on Monday, Minister for Women and Child Development Krishna Tirath said, “It will make a big difference to the adoption process in the country.” The minister said that prospective parents can access a list of adoptable children, their health status, their photographs and even the condition in which they were given up for adoption at CARINGS. The system would also provide registration, status tracking and matching of child and parent compatibility. There would be a separate list of prospective parents, a waiting list and the status of their application which would help adoption agencies.

She said the system had been launched since her ministry was receiving a lot of complaints regarding the process of adoption from people across the country. Besides ensuring a speedy and transparent adoption, the government would also be able to monitor adoption and post-adoption process. Out of the total 326 adoption agencies across the country, 172 have so far registered with CARINGS. The rest of the adoption agencies are in the process of signing the Memoranda of Understandings (MoUs) with the government, she said.
“Efforts will be made to bring all the functions of various adoption agencies in the country on the list,” she said adding that action would be taken for cancellation of the licences of the agencies failing to register with the government. Under the new guidelines, the fees for domestic adoptions would be  to Rs 45,000 and for foreigners, it would be $5000.