Madhya Pradesh to launch website for missing children

BHOPAL - The Madhya Pradesh government’s Women and Child Development (WCD) department is all set to launch a website for missing children in the state which could help in identifying and tracing them, an official said Friday.

“We are planning a website for the missing children, so that they could be clearly identified,” the department’s deputy director and Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) in-charge Mamta Pathak told IANS, adding that the initiative would help to trace and rehabilitate missing children.

The ICPS will entail integration of all the 18 different schemes for the protection of child rights and security, which would now be implemented by a single department.

Pathak said the department would take the support of various non-governmental organisations, state agencies and the field officers for making the endeavour a success.

The collection of data about missing children and the implementation the various schemes under an integrated ICPS has already been started with the help of National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD) and other child rights agencies, she said.

Madhya Pradesh is the 6th state to sign a memorandum of understanding with the central government for the implementation of ICPS, Pathak said. ICPS is a centrally sponsored “umbrella scheme” for protection of child rights and security while woman and child department would be the nodal agency to implement it.

“It would go a long way in working for the cause of children as various schemes pertaining to protection and security of children will now be implemented by one department,” Women and Child Development Commissioner Gulshan Bambra said.