‘No pandemic impact on adoption process’

Kolkata: A steep rise in preference for adopting girls has also been noticed. In 2019-’20, the total number of girl adoptions was 122, with 86 boy adoptions. While the whole country has seen a decrease in the total girl adoption rate, Bengal saw a 9.2% increase in girl adoptions, compared with before the pandemic.

Behala Resident Ritayan Pal, 36, and his wife had applied for adoption three years back and finally completed the process to adopt a two-month-old girl during the second wave of the pandemic in 2021. “Amid the gloom of Covid, she has brought light and joy to our family,” said Pal.

The ratio of girls adopted in Bengal in respect to the entire country was 5.5% before the pandemic. This touched 6.6% during the pandemic.

Shashi Panja, Bengal’s minister of women and child development and social welfare, said adoption was a regular, ongoing and transparent process.

“The pandemic has not affected the adoption rate. As it is a process that takes 3-4 years, we did not stop the process because of the pandemic,” she said. She added that the app ‘Sneho Chaya’, which was developed by the Bengal government to track orphans, their problems and needs during Covid, had helped adoptions as well.

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