Apart from that, 29 babies were deposited in Odisha and Punjab each in 2016 in these centres, while Assam accounted for 24 abandoned babies. In Haryana, 19 babies were deposited in 2016.
Over 55 babies from the Capital were abandoned by parents in the cradle baby reception centres spread across the region. Of these, 41 babies were submitted in these centres in 2016, while 14 babies have been submitted till April this year.
Apart from that, 29 babies were deposited in Odisha and Punjab each in 2016 in these centres, while Assam accounted for 24 abandoned babies. In Haryana, 19 babies were deposited in 2016.
The collection centres were initiated by the women and child development ministry last year after minister Maneka Gandhi saw such a facility in Guwahati. In a reply to the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, Gandhi said that in all 205 babies have been abandoned in over 265 centres across 11 states since the scheme took off. The data from eight other states, however, remained unavailable.
Once the babies are deposited by parents who did not wish to keep them, the babies were put up for adoption. An official from the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) said that several of these babies have already been adopted, with Maharashtra accounting for the highest number of adoption.
The move, the official said, was taken to plug the gap in between the number of parents willing to adopt a child and the number of children available. While there are a little over 1700 children up for adoption, the number of applications from prospective Indian parents is over 12,000. In addition to that, there are about 600 applications from foreign nationals looking to adopt an Indian child. Of the 1700 children available, almost half of the children had special needs.
The Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) mandates that every state sets up baby cradle centres in every district to receive abandoned children who are vulnerable to trafficking. Section 29 (5) of the Adoption Regulations, 2017, mandates every specialised adoption agency to set up its own centre to receive abandoned children. It also mandates that these agencies set up "cradle baby points at primary health care centers, hospitals etc.
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