News: Ministry of Women and Child Development has issued the detailed guidelines for PM CARES for Children Scheme.
About the Scheme:
Objective– To ensure comprehensive care and protection of children who have lost their parent(s) to COVID pandemic, in a sustained manner, enable their wellbeing.
Agencies involved:
- Central level: Ministry of Women and Child Development.
- State level: . Department of the State/UT government dealing with the Juvenile Justice set up in the State shall be the nodal agency at State level.
- District level: District Magistrates (DM).
Eligibility criteria:
- It covers all children who have lost i) Both parents or ii) Surviving parent or iii) legal guardian/adoptive parents/single adoptive parent due to COVID 19 pandemic.
- Child should not have completed 18 years of age on the date of death of parents.
- Time period: Starting from 11.03.2020 the date on which WHO has declared and characterized COVID-19 as pandemic till 31.12.2021, shall be entitled to benefits under this scheme.
Entitlements under the scheme:
- Support for Boarding and Lodging.
- Efforts will be made by the DM with the assistance of Child Welfare Committee (CWC) to explore the possibility of rehabilitating the child within her/his extended family, relatives, kith, or kin.
- Assistance for Pre-school and School Education:
- For children below 6 years of age Identified beneficiaries will receive support and assistance from the Anganwadi services for supplementary nutrition, pre-school education/ ECCE, immunization, health referrals, and health check-up.
- For children below 10 years of age:
i) Admission shall be provided in any nearest school as a day scholar i.e. Government/ Government aided School/ Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs)/ Private Schools.
- In private schools, tuition fees shall be exempted under section 12(1)(c) of RTE Act.
- Under circumstances where child is unable to receive above benefits, the fees, as per the RTE norms, will be given from the PM CARES for Children scheme.
- Assistance for Higher Education:
i) The child will be assisted in obtaining education loan for Professional courses /Higher Education in India
ii) Where beneficiary is unable to avail interest exemption from extant Central and State Government scheme, then the interest on the educational loan will be paid from PM CARES for Children Scheme.
- Health Insurance:
- All children will be enrolled as a beneficiary under Ayushman Bharat Scheme (PM-JAY) with a health insurance cover of Rs. 5 lakhs.
- Financial Support:
a. A pro-rata amount will be credited upfront in the account of each identified beneficiary such that the corpus for each beneficiary becomes Rs. 10 lakhs at the time of attaining 18 years of age.
b. Children will receive monthly stipend once they attain 18 years of age, by investing the corpus of Rs 10 lakhs. The beneficiary will receive stipend till they attain 23 years of age.
c. They will receive an amount of Rs. 10 lakh on attaining 23 years of age.
