Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights staff crunch hits nursery admissions

The DCPCR is getting the maximum number of queries relating to nursery admission.

The only mechanism for redressing grievances related to children in the Capital, the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR), is almost nonfunctional these days.

The DCPCR team that handles cases like child sexual abuse, child labour and complaints related to Right to Education (RTE), has only one member currently as the tenure of the other three expired a week ago. The commission office wears a deserted look these days.

The vacancies are unlikely to be filled in the next few days. With the model code of conduct in place now for the municipal elections, scheduled on March 15, there is a freeze on new appointments.

Sources said the Delhi government was to blame for the situation.

A former official of the commission said it was because of the short-sightedness of the department of women and child welfare, under which DCPCR was set up, that things had come to such a passe.

The notification for the municipal polls was issued on March 1 whereas the government was reportedly apprised of the tenures of three of the four DCPCR members ending way back in January. But it neither announced an extension for the three members, nor did it make new appointments.

Only complaints of "extremely serious nature" were being handled by the commission these days, the official said.

The commission being understaffed at this juncture is particularly worrying because it's the nursery admission season. And this is the time when DCPCR is usually inundated with thousands of complaints regarding non- compliance of Department of Education (DoE) guidelines by schools regarding admissions.

Complaints such as screening of parents, interviews of children, demands for capitation fee and irregularities in the selection lists of schools crop up in the month of March when the admissions are in their final stages.

Many people who have approached the commission with complaints regarding nursery admissions said they were told that their queries couldn't be taken up at the moment because the office was understaffed.

"I submitted a complaint regarding the admission procedure in a Rohini school to DCPCR a few weeks ago. When I called up the commission's office last week to follow up on the issue, I was told that the office was facing staff shortage and that the complaint couldn't be taken up," Khagesh Jha, president of Justice for All group, said.

Sumit Vohra, who runs the online portal admissionsnursery.

com for nursery admission related queries, said he had heard from many disgruntled parents who had approached DCPCR that their complaints couldn't be registered.

"All these people have been told that the commission can't help them at the moment because of scarcity of active members," said Vohra.

When contacted, minister for women and child welfare Kiran Walia said the government's hands were tied because the election code was in force.

"We have completed all the necessary formalities, but are bound by the code of conduct and can't comment on the issue at the moment.

"Regarding the team being understaffed, I haven't yet received any complaint regarding its working. So things can be said to be moving fine enough right now," Walia said.

It is learnt that all the three members have applied for another tenure and are likely to bag the posts as well. But the backlog of complaints, a majority of which are related to nursery admissions, will make the task of the new members tough.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/dcpcr-staff-crunch-hits-nursery-admissions-in-delhi/1/177485.html