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

The National Policy for Children, 2013 affirms that every person below eighteen years is a child and that childhood is an integral part of life with a value of its own, adopting a rights-based approach anchored in the Constitution and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Main provisions

• Four priority areas: survival, health and nutrition; education and development; protection; and participation.
• Guiding principles of non-discrimination, best interest of the child, and the family as the preferred environment for care and upbringing.
• Institutional machinery: a National Coordination and Action Group under the Ministry of Women and Child Development, state plans of action, the National Plan of Action for Children, 2016, and monitoring through NCPCR and SCPCRs.

Implementation status

• Survival and nutrition: infant mortality has fallen to around 26–28 per 1,000 live births, yet NFHS-5 records 35.5% stunting and high child anaemia; Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0 pursue convergence.
• Education: the RTE Act and Samagra Shiksha have near-universalised enrolment, but ASER surveys reveal weak learning outcomes; NIPUN Bharat targets foundational literacy and numeracy.
• Protection: the POCSO Act, the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 and Mission Vatsalya strengthen the framework, yet child marriage (23.3% per NFHS-5), trafficking and child labour persist.
• Participation remains the weakest pillar — bal sabhas and child cabinets are sporadic.

The policy architecture is sound; the deficits lie in convergence, financing and district-level enforcement, which the 2030 SDG child targets now make urgent.