26 years on, cradle baby scheme aims to maintain child sex ratio

Found crying inside a drain, the newborn, who was rescued by local residents, was treated at a government hospital and is now under the care of the State’s Cradle Baby Scheme. Ironically, Suhanthiran, the rescued baby, is under the care of a scheme that was launched to protect baby girls in particular, even as there have been multiple cases of boys being left in the cradles over the years.

Introduced in 1992, when the State was reeling under the ubiquitous obsession for boys and prevalence of poverty and anxiety over spiralling marriage costs of daughters resulting in deaths of newborn girls, the scheme was first launched in Salem. The babies abandoned by parents were received in hospitals, primary health centres and children homes and then given for adoption.

In 2001, four more reception centres were launched in Dharmapuri. Dindigul, Madurai and Theni. In 2011, Ariyalur, Cuddalore, Perambalur, Thiruvannamalai and Villupuram were included. In districts without such centres, too, abandoned babies are covered under the scheme. Until March 2018, 5,131 babies have been received (4,114 girls and 1,017 boys). Among them, 3,625 have been given for in-country adoption, 262 for inter-country adoption, 217 have been reunited with their biological parents, 359 sent to special homes meant for children with disabilities, while 95 await adoption.

Sources in the Social Welfare Department said that in tune with changing needs, the scheme is now aimed at maintaining a healthy child sex ratio. According to data available, over 100 babies have been received consistently in the past decade. “We will soon be extending it in five more districts, where babies have been found abandoned consistently. In sync with the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme, we want to improve the child sex ratio. Cuddalore had shown a very low CSR of 886 and it has now gone up to 918 after three years with the implementation of the scheme.”

Activists point to the easy route the Cradle Baby scheme has been offering to those who abandon newborns.

M Jeevanantham, state convenor, Campaign Against Sex Selective Abortion, said, “Every child has the right to live with his or her biological parents. And there is no clear case study of the lives of the babies taken care by the scheme so far. RTIs have been denied answers for questions regarding the same.” He added that the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994, that aimed to put an end to sex-selective abortion remains ineffective even in TN.