‘No room for kids in overcrowded shelters’

LUCKNOW: Despite multiple requests by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), the state department of women and child welfare is still to act on addressing the problem of overcrowding at government-run shelter homes, complained CWC officials and some employees of these care centres.

According to Sangeeta Sharma, member CWC, as many as 500 children are lodged in the five government-run shelter homes of Lucknow against the overall sanctioned capacity of around 350.

“Lucknow has almost 30 shelter homes for children, including five operated by the government. The government-run shelter homes bear the maximum pressure due to the care facilities and infrastructure available there. Several private shelter homes here are either ill-equipped or have very low capacity,” she said.

According to data available with CWC, Lucknow, daily three to four children are lodged in shelter homes in Lucknow. “The number is high during drives against child labour and child begging,” said Sharma.

She said that in cases of child labour, kids were supposed to be lodged at care institutions till age verification was done. “It takes days for conducting age verification. The shelter homes in Lucknow are already full to capacity and the additional burden would only cause more inconvenience,” said Sharma. Another official, requesting anonymity, said, “Sometimes, we choose not to admit children in shelter homes keeping overcrowding in mind. Due to lack of space at these centres, several times, child rights authorities are forced to leave minor labourers and beggars without providing them proper counselling and care.” He said child labour rescue drives were not carried out for nine months and lack of space at shelter homes was one of the reasons for that.

Talking about the government-run Motinagar shelter home for girls, from where recently 30 inmates had to be shifted out temporarily due to incessant rain, centre superintendent Rita Tamta said, “Initially, there were supposed to be two buildings at the shelter -each housing around 100 girls. But the situation is that we are accommodating around 90 girls in just one building (as the other is being used for some other purpose).” She said the shelter home had requested the department of women and child welfare to arrange for additional accommodation space a long time ago. “We have been reminding them time and again,” said Tamta.

Sharma said the situation was no different in the governmentrun adoption home in Lucknow where 35 children were lodged against the capacity of 10. “Similarly, in the government shelter home for boys, 91 children are being lodged against a capacity of 50,” she said.When contacted, director, women and child development, Manoj Kumar Rai, said, “We are working on a plan to revamp the system and strengthen the infrastructure. Soon, all these issues will be resolved.”