Aadhaar numbers of more than 30,000 children living in child care homes have been linked to the TrackChild portal to track their whereabouts and aid them.
The government has pushed the linking of Aadhaar numbers of 30,385 children living in child care institutions (CCI) to the TrackChild portal. This step comes as an initiative to strengthen the government’s database on children living in CCIs and to keep a track of them amid reports of children going missing from child cares. All children living in CCIs across the country will soon be enrolled to the platform. At a national scale, an estimated total of 261,566 children are living in over 9000 CCIs currently.
Aadhaar to track missing children
According to a Woman and Child Development official, Aadhaar enrollment procedure by child care institutions at times have led authorities to finding parents. Many of these children were already enrolled to Aadhaar beforehand, leading to prompt tracking of their addresses.
The TrackChild portal, which acts as a database for all missing children across the country, has the provision of entering Aadhaar details of children. The official has reported to the media that the Ministry has asked all stakeholders to ensure every child in all CCIs are enrolled to UIDAI’s unique identification and registered to the portal. State governments are acting accordingly. Entered details in the portal will enable state governments and police departments to co-ordinate with CCIs in finding missing children and reuniting them with their families.
As per National Crime Record Bureau, 63,407 children were reported missing in 2016.
