Women and Child Development Ministry Smriti Irani on Wednesday dismissed a report published in the science journal The Lancet that stated that over 19 lakh children became orphans in India during the pandemic, dubbing it “sophisticated trickery”. The ministry has maintained that during the pandemic 1,53,847 children had lost either one or both parents in the last two years under the pandemic.
“This is sophisticated trickery intended to create panic among citizen, divorced from truth and ground realities,” Irani told reporters at a briefing.
The ministry data suggests that 1,53,847 children lost one or more parents since April 1, 2020 either to Covid or due to any other reason. The data, officials said, is compiled from the states and UTs as per the directive of the Supreme Court. The apex court had directed all the states and UTs to identify children who have lost one or more of their parents or have been abandoned during the pandemic due to any reason. The loss of a parent could have been due to Covid, natural, unnatural, or from any other cause.
Following the court’s directive, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) was asked to set up a portal called Bal Swaraj, where data on children was uploaded. “So far, 1,53,827 children have been registered on the portal including 1,42,949 children with single parent, 492 abandoned children and 10,386 children who have lost both their parents,” officials said.
At 26,318, Odisha had the largest number of orphans, followed by Maharashtra with 20,429, and then Gujarat with 14,934 orphans. Karnataka had 5,098 such cases, Rajasthan 6,830, and Madhya Pradesh 7,662.
In addition to that, ministry officials said that under the PM CARES scheme, applications from 4,196 children have been approved for the benefits of the scheme.
The ministry has refuted The Lancet’s data and the NCPCR has sent the journal a notice contesting the number, and asking them to reveal the source of the data. The official number of covid fatalities in India stands at 5.14 lakh, with several rights groups claiming that the number is higher.
A WCD ministry official said that what could explain the wide discrepancy in the data is the journal's definition of a guardian, which includes a grandparent as well as any primary caregiver of the child, while India’s official definition of an orphan is a child who has lost one or both parents. The PM CARES is available to any child who has lost one or both parents due to Covid, while the Bal Swaraj portal documents the loss of either one or both parents due to any reason.
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