Average adoption waiting period climbs to 3.5 years

NEW DELHI: Eager to embrace parenthood after she suffered a miscarriage, Moumita Das and her husband, in their 30s, from West Bengal registered with Central Adoption Resource Authority (Cara) in Sept 2021 to adopt a child. It is 2025 and the couple, though has slowly moved up the waiting list, is still anxiously awaiting its turn to be matched with a child in the 0-2 years age group.

Even as the number of adoptions crossed 4,500 in 2024-25, as of March 31, the highest in 11 years, for many prospective adoptive parents (PAPs) the process of adopting a child continues to be a challenge, with an average three and a half years waiting period for those seeking infants or young children. Most parents want to adopt a child in the 0-2 years age group.

Swarnamala Arunachalam and her husband Prasanna Sukumar from Chennai, also in their 30s, have been in the queue since Dec 2021. They too are still waiting to be matched with siblings in the age group. The couple chose to go for adoption of siblings over having biological children right from the time they got married. They registered with Cara on their second anniversary but the long wait has left the couple anxious. They hope for a referral this year.

With the years rolling by and many more processes to clear after being matched with a child, PAPs to whom TOI spoke to define their mental state as one where it seems like a "race against time" with age catching up and uncertainty growing.

The numbers reflect the distress. Data, as of March 31, on the Cara dashboard, showed that there are over 35,500 PAPs across various categories registered to adopt while the number of children available for adoption is around 2,400 - 943 of these children are "normal" and the rest classified as "special needs children".

Taking note of the long wait, the department-related parliamentary standing committee on education, women, children, youth and sports, chaired by Congress MP Digvjaya Singh, in its report tabled in Parliament has strongly called for measures, asking the govt to revisit the current protocols for family placement of orphan, abandoned and surrendered children (OAS).

It has also asked the govt to review the existing dual system of adoption laws through Cara and the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act to plug loopholes.

The women and child development ministry has informed the committee that while the adoption procedure has been streamlined under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, with the online application system (Carings), the ministry has come across grievances mostly due to long waiting list of PAPs. "...Parents want to adopt younger children only, thus leaving behind a large number of older children," the ministry said.

The WCD ministry has also shared that based on the availability of the registered children and registered PAPs ratio, an average of three and a half years is the waiting period for infants and young children.

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