New Delhi: Over 4,000 children, including 2,398 girls, were adopted in 2018-19, the highest in five years, data released by Child Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) has said.
In 2018-19, a total of 4,027 children were adopted in which about 3,374 children were adopted within the country while 653 inter-country adoptions were made, the CARA data showed.
In 2017-18, as many as 3,927 children were adopted while in 2016-17, a total of 3,788 children were adopted. In 2015-16, a total of 3,677 children were adopted.
An official with the Women and Child Development Ministry said the perception of the people towards girl child is changing and that is evident from the fact that every year more girls are adopted than boys.
According to the data, the highest number of children — 845 including 477 girls were adopted from Maharashtra.
The official said the highest adoption is recorded from Maharashtra due to the large number of adoption agencies there.
“Maharashtra has the highest number of adoption agencies in the country while other states that are bigger have on an average 20 adoption agencies due to which highest adoptions are seen from there (Maharashtra),” the official said.
Maharashtra was followed by Karnataka where 281 adoptions took place. They were followed by Odisha with 244 adoptions and Madhya Pradesh with 239 adoptions, the data showed.
Even in states like Haryana, more girls were adopted than boys. Out of 72 children adopted in Haryana, a total of 45 were girls.
In Delhi, a total of 153 children, including 103 girls, were adopted, the data said.
