Examine the main provisions of the National Child Policy and throw light on the status of its implementation.

Main provisions of the National Policy for Children, 2013

• The child is a rights-holder. The State, the family and the community share duty. The best interest of the child is the guiding test for every law and scheme.
• Survival, health and nutrition: the Policy promises safe birth, immunisation, infant and young-child feeding, care of the malnourished, and health services that reach the girl child and the child with disability.
• Education and development: free and compulsory education in the 6–14 band is already a fundamental right (Article 21A and the RTE Act, 2009); the Policy also stresses early childhood care, the 15–18 years group, play, and protection from child labour that cuts schooling.
• Protection: freedom from violence, trafficking, sexual offence, hazardous work, and conflict with law. It backs a juvenile justice approach that is child-friendly, not a mini-adult criminal court as the first instinct.
• Participation: the child's view is to be heard in families, schools, panchayats and proceedings that affect her, in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which India ratified in 1992.
• Equality and non-discrimination: special attention to SC, ST, minorities, the girl child, street children, children of migrants, and children with disability.
• Institutional map: the Ministry of Women and Child Development as nodal ministry; the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and State Commissions as watchdogs; a National Plan of Action to turn the Policy into targets.
• Budget and data: child budgeting, coordination across ministries, and disaggregated data so that a missing girl or a drop-out is visible.

Status of implementation

• Survival and nutrition: ICDS and the National Health Mission expanded anganwadis, ASHAs and immunisation. NFHS and hunger measures still show high stunting and anaemia. The Policy's nutrition promise is therefore only partly met.
• Education: RTE brought neighbourhood schools, 25 per cent private-school seats for weaker sections, and a ban on screening at entry. Learning outcomes (ASER and NAS) remain weak; many children aged 15–18 are out of a useful course. Early childhood care is still the thinner limb.
• Protection: the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016, gave the Policy teeth. Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) funds Child Welfare Committees, juvenile boards and homes. Vacancies, delayed CWC sittings, and poor home quality are common.
• Trafficking, child marriage (Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006) and missing children still show a gap between statute and police-panchayat practice.
• Participation: school cabinets and some Bal Sabhas exist; genuine hearing of the child in custody, adoption and school-expulsion cases is patchy.
• NCPCR and SCPCRs monitor and inquire, but they are not a substitute for district staff. Child budgeting in Union and State budgets has grown in line items, yet many 'child' heads are general education or health not targeted to the most excluded.
• The National Plan of Action for Children (work toward a 2016 plan) tries to set monitorable goals; without State plans and collectors' dashboards, the 2013 Policy remains a preface.

Examine, do not only list

• The 2013 Policy is stronger than 1974 because it is rights-based, defines the child as under-18, and names participation. Implementation depends on State cadres, panchayats and courts, not on the gazette notification alone.
• Criminal law moved faster than nutrition and learning. A child may have a POCSO court in the district and still be stunted and unable to read a grade-2 text.