The Government of India has enacted the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, (JJ Act), which has come into effect from 15th January, 2016, repealing the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 to provide care and protection to children in need of care and protection, including missing and run-away children. The primary responsibility of execution of JJ Act lies with State/UTs.   However, the Ministry is implementing a Centrally Sponsored Scheme namely, Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) (now “Child Protection Services”), which provides for Institutional and Non-institutional support systems for children in need of care and protection.  Under the ICPS, The Ministry is also providing support for an outreach service for children in distress including children requiring assistance for protection from abuse. This service is available through a dedicated toll free number, 1098 and can be accessed by children in crisis or by adults on their behalf. The scheme has provision for setting up of CHILDLINE contact centre (CCCs). Currently, there are six (06) CCCs functional in five locations namely Gurugram, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata.  The calls to 1098 from respective cities/districts are connected to these centres. Call related to the intervention of the case is transferred back to the respective intervention units for providing necessary assistance to the child in distress.

The number of Childline Services existing in the country is given below:

The outreach service is presently executed through a mother NGO namely, Childline India Foundation, Mumbai which has partners (City/District level Advisory Board, Nodal Organisation (Urban and Rural), Collaborative Organisation (Urban and Rural) and District Sub-Centre(s) (Rural)). Under ICPS, there is a provision of Regional Resource Centres (RRC) and there are four RRC located in New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai. The program teams of these RRC monitor and evaluate the service of partners at the District level.

 This information was given by Minister of State for Women and Child Development, Dr. Virendra Kumar in reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.

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NB/UD