The CARINGS portal for adoption maintained by CARA has been revamped to ensure online processing of adoption cases expeditiously and transparently. The end to end digitisation of entire process has led to faster processing at field level also. All the Districts Magistrates have already registered on the portal. Further, Chief Medical Officers of the districts are also being registered on the portal to determine health status of the special need children and for necessary medical intervention for fast tracking placement of such children. 

As per information received from Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), the details of number of children adopted by Indians and Foreigners/Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) during each of the last three years and current year (upto 13.12.2022) are as under :-

 

Year	In-country Adoption	Inter-country Adoption
2019-2020	3351	394
2020-2021	3142	417
2021-2022	2991	414
2022-2023 (April, 2022 to December 13, 2022)	1836	222

 

Most of the grievances relate to waiting time of the Prospective Adoptive Parents (PAPs). The waiting period of the PAPs depends on the availability of children who are declared legally free for adoption by CWC. It also depends on the choice of the PAPs to adopt from a particular State and also the age group preferred. While there is a long queue to adopt a normal young child upto six years of age, there is no waiting period for the PAPs who desire to adopt a child having special needs and a child from immediate placement category (mostly older children). Further, the waiting time is relevant for the PAPs only, the children who are legally free do not have to wait.

On the basis of feedback received from the stakeholders and experts, Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) has framed the Adoption Regulations, 2022 in-line with the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (as amended in 2021) which has been notified on 23.09.2022. The Adoption Regulations, 2022 were framed keeping in mind the issues and challenges faced by CARA and other stake holders including the Adoption Agencies & Prospective Adoptive Parents (PAPs).

Some of the salient features include (i) issue of Adoption Order by District Magistrate instead of Court, (ii) upper age limit for PAPs reduced to 85 years for couple and 40 years for a single PAPs in case they are adopting a child below 2 years, (iii) 7-day adoption effort launched by CARA for Resident Indian (RI), Non-Resident Indian (NRI), and Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) PAPs, (iv) Chief Medical Officer (CMO) to determine the health status of the child based on Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, (v) strict time line has been laid down for uploading LFA (Legally Free for Adoption) within maximum period of ten days, (vi) PAPs with more than two children do not qualify to get referral for a normal child, (vii) mandatory counselling has been stipulated for all the relevant stakeholders like prospective parents and older children at pre-adoption, adoption and post-adoption stages, (viii) times lines at various stages like uploading of LFA (Legally Free for Adoption) within ten days, examination of special needs children within a period of fifteen days by the Chief medical Officer and verification of adoption application documents by District Child Protection Unit (DCPU) within five days, (ix) emphasis on foster adoption of adoptable children already in foster care after a period of two years and (x) stringent measures have been provisioned for PAPs becoming reason for disruption or dissolution.

This information was given by the Union Minister for Women & Child Development, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.

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