Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia has accoused the Bhartiya Janata Party of sabotaging Delhi government’s initiated ‘Desh Ke Mentor; Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).
“A BJP activist from Chhattisgarh has filed a complaint with NCPCR, who in return asked us about the steps we have taken to ensure children’s safety. After we have answered each and every question of theirs, NCPCR has stated that no police verification is being done of the mentees,” he said during a press conference.
“NCPCR has further said that there is a probability of child trafficking via phone calls and asked whether there is any mechanism to prevent the origin of cybercrime and child trafficking,” Delhi Deputy Chief Minister said, sharing that on the above-mentioned grounds the commission has asked to “immediately suspend the concerned scheme initiative”.
“It means, if an IIT and IIM graduate student wishes to mentor a government school student to help him or her succeed in life, then the BJP will blame them for committing cybercrime,” he said, adding that this step shows “how the BJP does not wish to see the youth of this country progressing”.
The programme was launched in October 2021 and it aims to provide voluntary mentors to students from Class 9 to 12.
To which, Sisodia said: “Those who volunteered to be mentors are made to undergo a psychometric test, their educational background is taken care of and they are trained accordingly, only after which they are assigned a mentee. We have also ensured that mentees are only assigned mentors of the same gender.”
So far, 1,74,000 mentees have been mentored by 44,000 mentors under the programme, Sisodia told the media.
