SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Aug 26: Roaming street children in Dhanbad will now be covered under the government welfare scheme and rehabilitated properly in the district.
The Dhanbad social welfare department has directed all concerned agencies to conduct a comprehensive survey in the district and identify the children roaming on street and bring them before Child Welfare Committee (CWC) so that they could be rehabilitated.
The survey is being conducted on the directive of the Supreme Court. The agencies would identify street children into three categories.
The first category will include those children come who beg the whole day on street with their parents and return home in the evening. The second category will include mothers and fatherless orphan children come who beg on street but have no permanent house. They take shelter under the roadside building at night. The third category will include those children who have a parent(s) but don’t have their own house and spend the nights on street.
The meeting was presided over by District Social Welfare (DSW) officer Sneh Kashyap. District Child Protection Officer Sadhna Singh, Child Welfare Committee (CWC) chairman Uttam Mukherjee, District Child Line coordinator Anand Kumar, Anamika Kumari, and members of Railway Child Line were present on the occasion.
The DSW officer directed the concerned agencies to identify children of all trio categories and bring them before the Child Welfare Committee.
“In case the children do not come before CWC after identification, then members of the committee would go to them and take cognizance of their condition,” said Sneh Kashyap.
This is the first time a survey is being conducted in Dhanbad to identify roaming street children.
CWC chairman Uttam Mukherjee, who has intensified the campaign in the district after assuming office, said that the district administration is serious to rehabilitate roaming street children.
“We would work with district administration to cover such roaming street children on basis of the list after survey with all facilities they are entitled to get under the government-sponsored programme so that they do not need begging on street,” he said.
