COVID-19 pandemic: 1,742 children orphaned, 7,464 lost 1 parent

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday took note of the Centre's welfare scheme to provide relief to children who have lost parents to COVID-19 pandemic, and sought details of the plan along with the mechanism devised to monitor it.

A bench comprising justices L Nageswara Rao and Aniruddha Bose also directed states and Union Territories (UTs) to appoint nodal officers of level of Secretary or Joint Secretary who will interact with its amicus curiae Gaurav Agrawal for providing all the information on orphans, their identification and about the welfare measures for them.

National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) informed SC that 9,346 affected kids data has been uploaded on the newly created Bal Swaraj portal. This data includes 1,742 children who lost both parents, 7,464 now in a single-parent household, 140 have been abandoned from March 2020 to May 29, 2021.

A day after Centre informed the Supreme Court that it expects entire country's population above 18 years to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by the end of year, a senior top court judge Justice D.Y. Chandrachud expressed hope that vaccination takes place for everybody, to enable the court to resume physical hearing.

Justice Chandrachud shared his experience when he was isolated after contracting viral infection. He added that he was lucky to have his books around him during isolation. "I was in isolation for 18 days. I was all alone reading books," said Justice Chandrachud.

India reported 1,27,510 new infections in 24 hours -- its lowest in 50 days, as 2,795 more succumbed to the pandemic, the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry said on Tuesday. Fatalities also dropped below the 3,000-mark for the first time since April 26, when the country witnessed 2,771 deaths.

Covishield will not be changed to a single-shot schedule and "there is no question" of mixing vaccines till scientifically proven, the government said on Tuesday, after key pointers of its plans floated unofficially to the media ran into resistance from sections of the medical community.

The clarifications came after government sources, requesting not to be named, told reporters that tests on mixing vaccines and the effectiveness of a single dose of Covishield will begin soon in the government's new strategy at a time the shortage of shots has slowed down vaccinations.