What were the bottlenecks in the process?

 According to the team members in Don Bosco Hyderabad and Kolkata, none of the legal identity documents received for the children under their care through Government’s laiddown processes, rather all certificates so far have been accessed through brokers paying the brokerage amounts. In Hyderabad, the GHMC called up meeting with CCIs and informed that they would come to the CCIs for age verifications and issue birth certificates to all children under their care. However, no one turned up so far from GHMC for age verification of the children in Don “How can CCIs manage paying hefty

Bosco Navajeevan Hyderabad. According amount to brokers for accessing documents that are actually the right of to the staff, if the applications are children and its government’s submitted through brokers, no one from responsibility to issue!”

Mandal Revenue Office comes to the CCIs - An NGO representative in Hyderabad for verification and certificates are received in two days.  SOS Children’s Village in Kolkata faced challenge in providing Birth Certificates for few children who came from Meghalaya with no documental proof. However, paying Rs.1000 per child to the lawyer for an affidavit would work to access Birth Certificate for these children without showing any proof, though it poses burden on the organization resources for such payment because none of the donors agrees to fund for such things. The staff also pointed out that in cases of children from rural areas with no documental proof from relatives, letters from gram panchayats could help to access the certificates easily. But children in urban areas cannot avail this facility as letter from Councillors were not accepted by the authorities for issuing birth certificates. Team in Don Bosco, Kolkata mentioned that Kolkata Municipal Corporation asked for backdated medical certificates mentioning the children were born on the said dates under the doctor’s supervision.

However, this process may not be ethical and possible because most of the doctors would deny providing such letters. In terms of accessing caste certificates for children, the challenge is to get proof of relation with the extended family members (relatives). As mentioned in the Act, Caste Certificates of the relatives would be helpful document while applying caste certificates for children. Getting proof of relations that needs to be submitted along with caste certificate of relatives or letter from Gram Panchayat is not that easy.  The team member interviewed at Balemane, Bangalore spoke about challenges in case of girls without parents and relatives. The staff had been trying to access their caste certificates through affidavits from Advocate which involves costs as well as lots of time.

The organization also faced challenges to access Caste certificates for the children who are not from Bangalore city and do not have paternal documents. In such cases, the staff had to spend lot of time in reaching out to gram panchayat of child’s birthplace to get a

letter from GP mentioning caste details. Another challenge has been to access Birth

Certificates for children with no birth records, because the staff had to follow offline alternative procedure such as, accessing medical certificate and reaching out to

Magistrate Court that involved a lot of processes and was time consuming. Online Birth

Certificate was not being tried in BaaleMane as girls do not have any supporting documents that are required to upload for online applications.  The team at Salam Balak Trust in Delhi mentioned about their difficulties in accessing the caste certificates for the children in their care homes because most of the children’s parent status are not known and are not in contact. Hence, collecting paternal documents had been difficult for the organization.  Udayan Care, Delhi faced challenge in issuing Caste Certificate for the children under its care because of no paternal documents of children. Also, JJ rules of 2000 made a new category called “socially disadvantaged category” in Delhi and ordered to issue

Economically Weaker Section (EWS) certificates to economically weaker section of the society from general categories. Hence, the organization initiated to access EWS certificate for children of general categories so that they can avail 10% reservation for the

GEN-Economically Weaker Section in higher education all over the India and government jobs. The staff approached to ICPS officials under Women and Child Development

Department (WCD) –the issuing authority of EWS certificate and submitted written application to the officials requesting issuance of EWS certificates for children under their care. However, in reality, there is lack of clarity among Departmental officials regarding the Government Order, policy of EWS certificates and details on who are the issuing authorities and what are the supportive documents required. Hence, no such certificate has been issued by the WCD so far. The staff also pointed out that accessing Domicile

Certificate for children in Delhi is equally challenging, since a lot of incidences of fake certificate issuance came into light. Hence, documents such as, CWC declaration or letter from the organization showing tenure of children in the organization are no more accepted by the Review Department for issuing Domicile Certificates for children under

CCIs.

 Team at Sanlaap India, Kolkata mentioned that officials are not ready to understand the ground level problems and cases of children who needs alternative arrangements beyond government’s laid-down processes. o Accessing Birth Certificate was very difficult due to lack of supporting documentation for children, especially children. School leaving certificates were not taken as valid documents by the issuing authority in Kolkata. o Efforts made to advocate with Principal Magistrate of Juvenile Justice Board asking for alternative processes to access Birth Certificates for orphan. The Magistrate asked for the list of orphan children and suggested to collect CWC letter mentioning estimated date of birth, ossification tests from doctor, letter from organization stating tenure of

the children with the organization to get the court order from Magistrate. As per this process, the First-Class Magistrate will give a court order to the Department stating that these children are eligible to get the birth certificate. However, even after application with affidavit and order from First-Class Magistrate, issuance of certificates is still on hold.

o Some other challenges faced by the organization are; - Only 100 applications are taken per day for Birth Certificates and only 15 applications per day for Aadhar enrolments. Taking the children every day to the authorised registration site and being in the queue for long time is very difficult. - Making Affidavit to get Birth Certificate is difficult as it involves a long process. Home staff need to provide his/her own document, a certificate from the CCI about the staff’s tenure with organization. - Gather proof to show to the First-Class Magistrate to get Court order, if the children’s parents are dead by road accidents. It creates problem because accessing death certificates are difficult as children are not able to reveal the exact location of accident.

- Access documents and make affidavits for children whose parents are not in contact as their presence are required for making affidavit. o POCSO case children whose fathers are not traceable or refuses paternity are struggling to get birth certificate. Furnishing the documents of the mothers or maternal relatives are not accepted as officials are asking for father’s name to be filled in the forms as well as documental proof of only fathers or paternal blood relatives. Also, Children whose mothers are in prostitutions cannot show the names of the biological fathers and therefore struggling to get the certificates. o The team mentioned that there are ways to access Birth Certificate for children without birth records by bribing the agents which does not require to show any proof or documents. However, the agents ask for Rs. 1000 per child for birth certificates.