Lancet report on children orphaned during Covid has no correlation with ground realities: Govt

“Lancet has reported that more than 19 lakh children have lost their primary caregivers due to Covid-19 in India. There is no doubt that the researchers have used sophisticated methodology to estimate the numbers about children, who have lost their primary caregivers, but these findings have no correlation with ground reality in India as reflected from field findings,’’ said the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

The ministry said that according to the official data the number of children affected due to Covid in India is 1,53,827. This data, however, is not restricted to Covid-19 orphans alone.

The Supreme Court had directed all states and UTs to identify every child who has lost one or more of their parents or have been abandoned during Covid due to any reason, Covid or otherwise, during the pandemic period. The loss of parent could have been due to Covid, natural, unnatural, or from any other cause during the period of pandemic.

National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) is the nodal monitoring agency in this regard and set up a “Bal Swaraj” portal where the states upload their data which is collected at district level. The data collated is from April 1, 2020.

“So far, 1,53,827 children have been registered on the [Bal Swaraj] portal including 1,42,949 children with single parent, 492 abandoned children and 10,386 children who have lost both their parents,’’said the ministry.