Continuing to follow changes to India's adoption program I've been writing about for a while now, India adoptions authority, the Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) has submitted a draft of amended adoption guidelines to the Ministry for Women and Child Development.

The "Guidelines on Adoption of Indian Children Without Parental Care -- 2007" proposes changes that are wide-ranging and reported to have the immediate effect ... upon becoming law ... of automatically allowing more adoptions.

Salient features of this "single window" method of operations, according to Minister Smt. Renuka Chowdhury, will be increased transparency, more accountability and a streamlining of adoption procedures. She adds that there will be, for the first time, a system put in place for identification and adoption of children with special needs.

All child care institutions will be registered, and all cases of orphaned, abandoned and surrendered children are to be processed according to the 2006 Juvenile Justice Act whether adoption is to be domestic or international.

On the domestic front, this will result in families from any part of India being able to adopt from any other part without fear of being denied because of their roots or location.

All qualifying applications for intercountry adoptions will receive advance approval from CARA. If foreign agencies have specified an Indian agency they would prefer to work with, that will be considered, but CARA may also direct these to areas where there is a greater number of children available for international adoption in hopes of minimizing waiting times.

Not only designed to streamline adoptions, the compulsory registration of all child care institutions is meant to reduce illegal actions and increase the government's ability to track children from care to families.

It is also reported that international adoption fees are to be capped at $3,500 ... and "not a dollar more".

According to reports, the ministry has "more or less" approved the proposal, but insists they are still open to suggestions.
The draft of the new guidelines is being sent out to all concerned and posted on the CAARA website for comments. The process is to last for one month, after which time the final proposal will be formed.

For more information see this article in the India Times, this in the Hindustan Times, this from Asian Age, and this from Greater Kashmir.com, as well as what is provided on the CARA site. (Link above.)