Indian govt. asks States to focus on vulnerable groups like orphans, elderly, women

Our Correspondent
Kohima, May 21 (EMN): The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday issued an advisory to all the states and union territories to immediately review the existing facilities for vulnerable groups, especially for children who have been orphaned, senior citizens who may require timely assistance and support (medical as well as safety and security), and members of the Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes who may need guidance to access government support facilities.

“Taking into account the impact of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic particularly on vulnerable groups, the MHA has again reiterated to States/ Union Territories to focus on vulnerable sections, especially children who may have been orphaned due to loss of parents due to Covid-19,” read the statement issued by PIB.

The Ministry further requested the states to sensitise police personnel, co-ordination with various line departments and agencies concerned to effectively deploy the Women Help Desk in police stations and anti-human trafficking units in districts.

To help the states, it said the NCRB has released several tools like Crime Multi Centre Agency for police to share inter-state information; online National Alert Service for police on missing and found persons using the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS); and an automated photo matching web-based application UNIFY that uses the machine learning model to enable police personnel to search photographs of missing persons, unidentified dead bodies etc. against the national image repository in the CCTNS.

“The MHA has requested the States / Union Territories to create greater awareness on the central citizen service for missing persons which is available online. The MHA has also referred to the recent SOPs issued for safety of transgenders during Covid-19,” read the statement.