Crackdown on children's homes begins

Two days after the rape of two minor girls, who were staying at TELC’s children’s home at Pollachi, the Coimbatore administration on Saturday began an intensive inspection of the homes for children across the district.

Officials inspected 42 unregistered homes on Saturday, including 17 that have applied for registration. The rest have not even applied for registration.

Collector Archana Patnaik told

The Hindu that after studying the inspection report, action would be taken against those not complying with the standards and those that are not registered.

The Collector made it clear that not much time would be lost in the next course of action, and there would be a crackdown on homes that did not adhere to safety and other norms.

Official sources told The Hindu that there were 82 homes for children in the district, including the unregistered ones. Six of these were closed during the last one-and-a-half years for their failure to comply with the norms. The TELC-run home at Pollachi that was sealed after the rape was also unregistered.

Monitoring system

The administration is also working to establish a monitoring system to ensure that all homes comply with the norms, officials said.

A member of the Child Welfare Committee said the committee would meet on Tuesday to decide on efforts needed to continue education for the remaining 17 children from the TELC-run home and other issues such as their place of stay.

The children, aged between six and 13, were shifted to Coimbatore on Thursday after the closure of the home. Parents of some of the children met them here on Friday. All of them might not be able to afford the education of the children. Hence, efforts needed to be made to ensure that the children were able to go to school here, an official of the committee said.

The district administration said that on Friday, the Collector handed over to the parents of the two girls Rs.3 lakh each that was announced by the Chief Minister as compensation.

Fact-finding panel

The TELC council has constituted a fact-finding committee to ascertain the conditions of the home at Pollachi, and the factors that led to the rape of the girls. It would take corrective measures immediately after getting the committee’s report, said its secretary E.D. Charles. He told The Hindu on the phone that they would take all measures to rectify the problems after getting the report of the committee.

There was information on Thursday morning that the team would visit the home that afternoon. However, it did not turn up. Mr. Charles said the team would visit the home on Sunday.