Guidelines to trace missing kids
To prompt renewed efforts to trace children missing in Delhi — which has one of the highest numbers of missing children in the country — the city administration is widening the existing restoration process, and formulating new guidelines, standard operating procedures ( SOPs) for restoring children back to their families. The department of woman and child development ( WCD) along with the Delhi police is also set to launch a what- sapp group for information sharing and better coordination among them.
For speeding up the process of tracing missing children, the department of woman and child development ( WCD) has also constituted three working groups that would formulate and submit the action plans developed by them to the director ( WCD) within one month’s time.
“A series of meetings are being held in the department for review of the existing restoration process and formulating guidelines, SOPs for restoring children back to their families in an expeditious manner,” Satbir Bedi, principal secretary of social welfare and WCD, said.
Ms Bedi said the SOPs developed for chalking out the steps involved in restoration process would also specify timeline for each and every action required to be carried out at various stages, “so that all work is carried out in a time bound manner and responsibility is fixed for delays, if any.”
The official said that in order to develop a con- crete plan of action and to speed up the process of restorations, timeline has been fixed and three working groups have been constituted for developing strategic framework for making police network more responsive and involved in tracing families of missing children in a time bound manner; streamlining the processes being followed by child welfare committees for restoration of children; and for reviewing the process of restoration in residential institutions being run by the department.