Abstract

Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) is the Rights-based flagship Indian scheme for the care and protection of children. Institutional structures and fund flows are what official documents speak about, but there is hardly any critical analysis available on how this scheme has been put into practice. This paper evaluates ICPS from within a rights-based framework- a framework that locates children as right-holders of three baskets of rights: protection, provision, and participation. As per secondary data from government sources, NCPCR reviews, UNICEF reports, and academic studies, this article brings out both strengths and weaknesses of the scheme. The findings lead to the fact that even though child protection infrastructure has been widened across the country by ICPS with qualitative successes in certain states such as Kerala due to convergence in its true spirit-in Karnataka-with effective NGO partnership-and Maharashtra-streamlining adoption procedures-states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are still languishing with issues of unutilized funds, vacancies, and weak monitoring systems. It finds that institutional efficiency, not policy design, is the key determinant of outcomes. The paper thus helps highlight inter-state variations besides surfacing structural bottlenecks in the system as applicable toward knowing how recalibrated ICPS would better drive equitable child protection.

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