The state Women and Child Welfare Commissionerate has issued a showcause notice to the city-based adoption agency Preet Mandir following reports in The Indian Express that it was accepting ‘donations’ from parents. In its notice, the department has sought answers from the agency. The adoption agency, however, maintains that it was following old guidelines that allowed it to accept donations to raise funds.

The showcause notice, issued on May 29, states, “In respect of The Indian Express report which appeared on May 8, the Women and Child Welfare Comissionerate, Maharashtra state has issued a showcause notice to the agency. The agency on receipt of the notice should respond within four days. If it is not done, then it would be understood that as an agency you have nothing to say and we would be free to cancel your licence to operate as an adoption agency.’’

Deputy commissioner, women and child welfare (adoptions), Rahul More said no adoption agency should be accepting donations. “We issued the notice after its records were checked by the district women and child welfare officers. We have received the agency’s response and are yet to take a decision,’’ said More. The Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) does not permit any kind of donation.

Managing trustee of Preet Mandir D P Bhatia said they have replied to the notice. “We have received no notification from CARA on new guidelines. I have written to the district women and child welfare officer, commissionerate and to the minister that we were following the old guidelines, whereby we are allowed to raise funds considering our situation. We as an agency are surviving only on donations. We have a three-shift system to support the 40 children. We do not force any parent to donate money; it is by their own free will to support our endeavour. As we have the infrastructure, I have been requesting the government to allow us to re-start admissions so that we can keep the activity going. At present, we are also going to have new trustees as the old ones have resigned.’’

He added that the agency had 33 years of experience and needed to pay its staff up to Rs 2.5 lakh as salaries, which was raised through donations not only from adoptive parents but others as well. Asked whether they would give up the children to other agencies, he said that they have not yet thought about it.

The adoption agency, which had gained notoriety over alleged malpractices last year, was once again in the news for accepting donations. A CBI chargesheet notwithstanding, the agency, that has permission to give away only 40 children remaining at its Kalyaninagar unit for “in-country adoption”, was allegedly accepting donations from parents.

As per details available with The Indian Express, for 12 children who were to be placed under foster care, the agency charged the parents adoption cost as well as “donations”. CARA guidelines state that for in-country adoption, there is a Rs 1,000 registration fee, home study report and post-adoption follow-up charges of Rs 5,000, and Rs 40,000 as Child Care Corpus. The total payment to be made to the agency is Rs 46,000. Preet Mandir, however, charged donations (as the agency has labeled the entries in its books) ranging from Rs 17,000 to Rs 1 lakh apart from the adoption cost.

Minister of Women and Child Welfare, Varsha Gaikwad, had recently ordered that all divisions and district-level officers must check the functioning of adoption agencies.