Chapter 5: Successes and Challenges: Rainbow’s experience

Out of the randomly selected YAs across sample cities, some YAs whoever have institutional births possessed Birth Certificate from their places of origin before coming to the CCIs whereas some eligible YAs who could produce documents of blood relatives received Caste certificates. For some of the YAs in Kolkata, parents were helped by the team members of Loreto Rainbow Homes to access their own documents which helped in accessing few caste and domicile certificates of children under Loreto Rainbow Homes. Staff members accompanied girls to DWO, Kolkata Municipal Corporation for the required procedure and met councillors in certain occasions to get letters. In Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi, very few of the selected YAs received Income certificate, Caste certificate, Residence/ Domicile certificate either through parents or by the efforts of team members in Rainbow Homes. Few of the YAs in Hyderabad Rainbow Homes who did not have documental proof to access caste certificate were able to access orphan certificates. Common challenges observed in all sample cities were as under:

o There is no single window system Perceptions of YAs on importance of identity across sample cities to access forms documents for different identity documents. “Even for opening a bank account, Aadhaar card is a must. We need birth and caste certificates at the

Hence waiting in the long queue to time of joining School/College or to apply for some apply for different legal identity Government job/Entrance test or to apply for Govt. documents and repeated time visits to schemes/benefits.” – YAs in Bangalore the designated officials to get status of “To avail loan for education, we must need Domicile certificate but without Aadhaar, we cannot even certificates in cases of were common apply for that!!”- YAs in Delhi across cities in case of offline “Age proof is a mandatory document for college applications. On the contrary, in cases admission as well as a basic document to apply for of applications through online mode, all relevant legal identity such as caste certificate, nativity certificate”- YAs in Kolkata which were mainly through staff of “We are not able to apply for pre-matric or post-

Rainbow Homes did not yield positive matric scholarships for not having caste certificates. result in most of the cases due to lack Few Schools do not allow YAs to sit in board of proper documental proof of examinations without Aadhaar card and Birth certificate even though date of births is written in children. school records.”- YAs in Hyderabad o Single parents especially in interior villages are not at all aware of importance of entitlement documents and do not know their own caste or hide their castes after migrating to the cities. Also due to illiteracy as well as lack of documental proof, they get exploited by the intermediary agents who demand arbitrary fees to access legal identity documents for their children.

o Officials in citizen service centers in Hyderabad, Bangalore denied to accept application forms in certain cases on the ground that if people apply without proper documentation, the applications get rejected and the service center officials face consequence and get notices from upper authorities. o Government officials in sample cities found to be skeptical about functioning of CCIs as they are not run by the government. On many occasion letters from CWC were not accepted by the revenue officials for issuance of caste certificate to children from NGOrun CCIs. o Incidences of exploitation of parents by intermediary agents taking advantage of their illiteracy and lack of awareness about processes to apply for legal identity documents were common across sample cities. Many of parents interacted during the study mentioned about paying Rs.500 to Rs.4000 to different agents to access legal identity documents for their children.

Voices of the parents

i. Challenge in accessing Aadhaar card- Even after submitting applications and providing documents such as Birth certificate, the mother of one of the girls in Loreto Rainbow Homes complaint that her names were not listed in the nearby Aadhaar enrolment center by the

Government. The parent had to re-apply with fresh form, re-submitting documents and fees of Rs.150 per child. Even after that and repeated follow up with the official in-charge at the enrolment center, the mother and the girl did not receive the Aadhaar card.

ii. Difficult to get documents of blood relatives from the girls’ places of origin- YAs in Rainbow homes were asked to approach their relatives to get relevant documents so that those can be helpful to apply for their caste certificates. However, parents, especially single parent complaint of not getting help from the biological father of the girl or paternal relatives to get copies of caste certificate. iii. Exploitation by intermediary agents due to illiteracy and non-availability of documents: Few parents complaint of getting offer from agents asking for Rs.1000 per child to make a fake medical certificate which can be helpful to get original birth certificates. Few parents also spoke about paying Rs.1000 per child to these agents to get birth or caste certificates on producing only Aadhaar cards. The parent of one YA in Bangalore was, similarly exploited by an agent and end up paying Rs.4000 to get the child’s Aadhaar card and Bank account. Another parent mentioned about paying Rs.2000 to access Aadhaar cards and Caste Certificates of two children. Most of parents informed that initially they gave up the thought of making certificates because of the repeated visits to the issuing authorities and ignorance from the officials. At the time admission to college, they had to rely on the agent against payment to get the certificates in less time.

iv. Non-cooperation of Gram Panchayat members: Few parents complaint about noncooperation of gram panchayat members in terms of providing declaration letter mentioning caste of applicants which is considered as important documental proof to apply for ST certificate. The GP Pradhan asked the parents to bring Aadhaar cards at the time they would inform those parents, but no information came from the GP even after 6 months. Hence, these parents could not apply for their caste certificates. According to a parent, “Gram Panchayat

Pradhan only request for vote and promise that after vote they would be given certificates…and forget about every promise after coming into power.”