We've all heard of the adage that "where there is no cost, there is no value" and that may be true in terms of commodities but how does it sound if it has to be applied to a human life?
Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) which is a statutory body of Ministry of Women & Child Development of Government of India, for adoptions in and from India, stipulates "Adoption Expenses" in their latest regulations (2017). Contrary to earlier practice, they didn't disclose the expenses in these latest regulations but stated that they would be issuing them time to time. Earlier versions of regulations stated the expenses as below:
Item
|
In-country adoption (within India)
|
Inter-country adoption (adoption by others outside of India)
|
Child care corpus (CCC), prepration of
Child Study Report (CSR) & Medical Examination Report (MER), child care
and maintenance, legal expenses and other administrative costs
|
Rs. 40,000/-
|
|
Now, having said this, the question one ought to ask themselves is this: Is this correct to have such a price tag on a human life and that too for an individual that is in the most vulnerable situation?
Answer depends on whom you ask. There are some who argue to justify by saying that there are real costs involved in caring for the children and on the other hand there are a few who say that it dehumanizes child's worth.
CARA states that any older child (above six years of age) to be placed in adoption, child himself/ herself ought to consent. On the same logic, wouldn't it be logical to ask older adoptees of their opinion on the adoption costs? Many adoptees seem to think that their lives were commoditized when they couldn't voice their opinion.
One of the fundamental principle of Juvenile & Justice Act (JJ Act) is "Principle of Best Interest of the Child". If the older adoptees feel the way they do as I said above, is this practice of 'adoption fee' serving the best interest of the child?
To those that argue that there are real costs involved in caring for these children, no one disputes it. Let's look at how much money is collected in the name of adoption fee. According to the Lok Sabha data of 2017 - 2018, there are 2117 in-country adoptions and 538 inter-country adoptions.
- In-country adoptions: 2117 X Rs. 40,000/- = Rs. 8,46,80,000/-
- Inter-country adoptions: 538 X $ 5000/- = Rs. 16,14,00,000/- (for the calculation purpose, all the inter-country adoptions were calculated at $5000/- and converted into Indian currency at Rs. 60/- per dollar)
- Total: Rs. 24,60,80,000/-
Unit cost of adoption turns out to be Rs. 92,685/- (Rs. 24,60,80,000 divided by the total number of adoptions in and from India) for the life of a child.
24 crore rupees per year sounds like a lot of money but look at this figure in this background: India as a nation has been mopping more than 80,000 crores a month in GST and it is estimated that approximate amount of money that could be generated each year under CSR law is 20,000 crores.
If the Government of India chooses to fund the entire cost of adoption, perhaps they could reimburse the adoption (for both in-country and inter-country) agencies at Rs. 40,000/- per adoption and bring down the unit cost and the total cost by 57% (unit cost from Rs. 92685/- to Rs. 40,000/- and the total costs from approximately 24 crores to little over 10 crores).
India as a signatory to United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) evolved JJ Act which incrementally gotten stronger and better. This precise act also binds the Government of India (section 3 of JJ Act 2015) to follow the principles of JJ Act in administering the provisions of this Act. "Principle of dignity and worth" is what the state would be protecting by funding the adoptions. The dignity and the worth of Indian children is much more valuable than those 10.6 crores of rupees that would cost them each year.
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