The Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 is the primary law for children in need of care and protection. The JJ Act designed for the care, protection, development and rehabilitation of neglected and delinquent juveniles, as well as for the adjudication of and disposal of certain matters related to them.

The Juvenile Justice Act, 1986 has been replaced by a new Act called ‘The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000’. This new law is more child-friendly and provides for proper care and protection as also for ultimate rehabilitation of children in need of care and protection. A clear distinction has been made in the new law between the juvenile offender and the neglected child. The other salient features of this enactment are: (i) it prescribes a uniform age of 18 years below which both boys and girls are to be treated as children (ii) the Act directs that the cases related to juveniles should be completed within a period of four months (iii) it has been made compulsory to set up a Juvenile Justice Board (previously known as Juvenile Court) and Child Welfare Committee (previously known as Juvenile Welfare Board) either for a District or a group of Districts. (iv) special emphasis has been given for rehabilitation and social re-integration of the children and the alternatives provided for this are adoption, foster care, sponsorship and after-care. The new Act allows for adoption of a child within the purview of this Act by any community. The Juvenile Justice Board has been empowered to give such children in adoption even to a single parent and to parents to adopt a child of same sex irrespective of number of biological sons or daughters.

The Juvenile Justice Rules, 2002 under the 2000 Act have already been framed by the Government. 28 J.J board and 30 Child Welfare committees in respect of all the 30 districts has been constituted. In order to facilitate effective functioning of the CW Committees. DSWOs have been directed to provide secretarial assistance and contingency funds @Rs. 1.02 lakh per district have been provided to support the child protection mechanism in the district.

The programme for Juvenile Justice endeavours to provide for full coverage of services envisaged under the Juvenile Justice Act so as to ensure that no child under any circumstances is lodged in prison; to bring about qualitative improvement in the juvenile justice services and to promote voluntary action for the prevention of juvenile social maladjustment and rehabilitation of socially maladjusted juveniles.

Under the Programme for Juvenile Justice, the GoI provides assistance to the State Government for establishment and maintenance of Observation Homes, Juvenile Homes, Special Homes and after-care institutions for children in conflict with law and children in need of care and protection.

There are 15 Observation Homes in the State including 3 run by Government – one in Rourkela and two in Berhampur, the Special Home for neglected juvenile girls being one of them. The cost of maintenance of the inmates of the Observation Homes is borne by the State Government and Central Government on a 50:50 sharing basis under a Centrally Sponsored Plan Scheme. The maintenance grant per inmate has been raised to Rs.500/- from the previous level of Rs.300/- from 2004-05. The number of inmates in these Observation/Special Homes during the year has been varying between 110-120.

During 2006-2007 an amount of Rs.8.00 lakhs as State’s share has been provided under the Scheme with a matching share available from Government of India.