Tuesday, 31 January 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR) has written to the Education department to set up a separate body to monitor the functioning of private schools. The commission has also written to the State government to frame policies for running coaching institutes and kindergarten schools in view of several irregularities found by the commission during its inspection in the past year.
The SCPCR chairperson Geeta Khanna stated this while addressing the media here on Monday. She apprised the media about the achievements accomplished by the commission during the past one year of her term in office. She said that a total of 280 complaints were registered in the commission in the last one year out of which, 79 were registered by the commission itself to take suo motu cognisance of the issues. She said that the commission has resolved over 100 complaints so far.
According to her, the disposal rate of complaints of SCPCR is higher than the average national rate of child commissions. She said that the commission also rescued 111 children from child labour and registered FIR in 56 cases too. All rescued children are being sent to schools and their progress is regularly being monitored by the officials concerned, stated Khanna. She said that the commission has also prepared a draft to propose guidelines that should be made mandatory for education bodies to follow across the State and would be soon sent to the State administration for consideration. She also informed that the commission has also found various irregularities in four prominent schools and has appealed to the Education department to revoke their accreditation.
Besides this, Khanna added, the senior officials of departments concerned are also in touch with the High Court on the appeal of SCPCR regarding several issues including POCSO cases in court and execution of POCSO Act. She said that the commission has also been working on increasing children’s participation in child rights implementation. She said that 70 Bal Vidhayaks selected in November last year have also been informing about irregularities in their respective areas to the commission. SCPCR will take more innovative initiatives this year too for the welfare of children, added Khanna.
