Dikhyaa Mohanty 
The misery because of the deadliest virus- Coronavirus has impacted everyone with the first wave leading to the second wave and now the possibility of the third wave. But the most affected are the children who fell victim after their parents lost their lives due to the virus, leading to orphaned.
There are thousands of reports like this and due to which the ChildLine demanded an accurate report of all the children who have been orphaned in the pandemic in the State so far. It further demanded a survey with the help of Anganwadi workers and local NGOs to ascertain the actual number of such orphaned children.
Even following the direction of the Supreme Court, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has come out with a startling number of 1742 children who have been orphaned after losing both their parents to COVID.
The number of such children in Odisha as per an affidavit submitted by the NCPCR stands at 14. However, with an ever-increasing number of COVID deaths, ChildLine suspects the actual number could be much more.
Meanwhile, the Centre has launched a scheme for all children who have lost both parents, surviving parent, legal guardians or adoptive parents to Covid-19 who will receive financial assistance under the PM-CARES for Children’s scheme.
The PM-CARES will contribute through a specially designed scheme to create a corpus of Rs 10 lakh for each child when he or she reaches 18 years of age. This corpus will be used to give monthly financial support or stipend, through a fixed deposit in the name of the child, from 18 years of age for the next five years to take care of his or her personal requirements during the period of higher education. On reaching the age of 23 years, he or she will get the corpus amount as one lump sum for personal and professional use.
Similarly, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik has also provided much-needed support to the orphans by including them in the State’s flagship Madhu Babu Pension Scheme.
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