Bihar parents giving home to children orphaned by Covid under Parvarish scheme

Bihar government’s Parvarish (child raising) scheme meant to secure foster care and home for scores of children orphaned by Covid-19 pandemic is showing promising results with several parents coming forward and a family in Muzaffarpur being handed over the first such child.

Over two dozen families from across the state have so far shown interest in the social welfare department’s alternative care plan to raise around 100 children aged above six years, abandoned or orphaned during the second wave of Covid-19 and who have not been adopted yet.

While several applications are under process, one has come to fruition with a couple in Muzaffarpur district given custody of a child a couple of days ago with the support of UNICEF and the Centre of Excellence in Alternative Care, an NGO.

“Dubbed Parvarish, the plan is intended to provide such children with a home and to help them grow in a family environment. Family is important for better growth of a child. It’s mainly beneficial for the girls at government care institutions as they need a family and home once they become major. And this plan has turned out to be very useful for children orphaned by Covid,” Rajkumar, director, social welfare department said.

Earlier the social welfare department used to give ₹1,000 to families for maintenance of a child under foster care. Now, chief minister Nitish Kumar has announced ₹1,500 for children under foster care, he added.

The official said soon several other applications will be approved resulting in more orphaned children getting ‘homes’. “Now that the Covid lockdown norms have been relaxed to some extent, things in this direction will move faster. In fact, spot verification of families applying for foster care is very important,” he said.

A social welfare department employee, who did not want to be named, said among the applicants there are several families with no children. “But there are many others who have children, even then they want to provide foster care to Covid victims’ children,” the employee said.

Among them one family wants a girl child as the couple have three sons but no daughter; while in another case, the couple want a boy as there’s no male child in the family, the department employee added.

Meanwhile, Vijay Kumar Sinha, speaker of the Bihar assembly, has urged people representatives to monitor the effective implementation of Parvarish scheme in their areas.

“I have asked the MLAs to monitor whether such children in their areas are getting financial and social support,” he said. Even former MLAs have been requested to help out. There are about 600 former MLAs in the state, he added.