Khoya Paya Portal: Salient Features

Khoya Paya Portal: Salient Features

Question: Governance initiatives should involve citizens as well. Discuss on such citizen based governance initiative recently launched, the Khoya Paya Portal.

• The Khoya Paya web portal was launched by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development and the Department of Electronics and Information Technology

• It is citizen based website for exchanging data regarding missing and found children

• This portal is a completely unique idea

• This initiative goes beyond existing ones because it promotes citizen to citizen contact and allows India to take part in the search for missing children

• This is the first portal of its kind in India

• This portal promotes the aim of Digital India to bridge the digital divide and use technology for helping those in need

• Khoya Paya website is an enabling platform

• Citizens can report sightings of children’s whereabouts online immediately

• Reporting is done via texts, photos, videos and other means of transmitting and uploading information to the website

Facts and Stats

• NCRB data shows around 70,000 children in India go missing each year

• Total recovered children from January 2012 to April 2015 is 73597 as per data available

• Citizen based website will aid and assist legal and law enforcement officials

• The website is also open to child protection institutions and it harnesses the power of social media for locating the missing children