India Records World’s Highest Number of Adoptions: Over 4,500 Children Adopted
- trushali Kotecha
- May 16
- 2 min read
Apr 7, 2025, 14:09 IST
India led the world in child adoptions in FY 2024–25 with 4,515 cases—the highest in 12 years. With new adoption centres, digital updates, and awareness drives by CARA, the process is now faster and more families are choosing legal adoption. Check how India was able to achieve this feat.
India Records World’s Highest Number of Adoptions.
According to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, India saw 4,515 child adoptions in FY 2024–2025, the most in the previous 12 years.
The Ministry stated that 4,155 of the total were domestic adoptions, indicating the nation's increasing acceptance of legal adoption.
New Adoption Centres in India
Data from the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), which added 8,598 new children to the adoption pool, enabled this robust identification drive. CARA falls under the Ministry of Women and Child Development as a statutory entity.
The adoption procedure was also streamlined by the establishment of 245 new adoption agencies in collaboration with state governments.
Training and Awareness Campaigns for Adoption
The Ministry credited the progress in adoption to awareness campaigns and special training efforts:
CARA conducted 45 virtual training sessions.
The sessions covered topics like adoption timelines, training of Child Welfare Committee (CWC) members, foster care, and counseling for adoptive parents and children.
CARA also held in-person orientation programs in 12 states and union territories.
Additionally, from October 2024 to January 2025, CARA organized meetings with adoptive parents in collaboration with 16 states.
Supreme Court Directives for Adoption
Following directions from the Supreme Court, CARA began a detailed identification program for children. Children were placed into five groups:
Orphans
Abandoned
Surrendered
Unfit guardians
Children without visitation
The Ministry stated that the goal of this strategic initiative was to ensure that more children would have access to a safe and nurturing home by bringing them into the legal adoption framework.
New Programs for Older Children
Additionally, new programs were launched by CARA to improve alternative family-based care. To guarantee that older children are placed in family-based alternative care, CARA added foster care and foster adoption modules to the CARINGS portal in 2024.
Adoption in Just 3-4 Months
To make the adoption process clearer and efficient, digital tools were used. The CARINGS portal now includes updates related to:
Data correction and cleanup
Adoption Regulations, 2022
Faster processing of adoptions
Thanks to these updates, the time taken for processing in-country relative and stepparent adoptions was reduced to just 3–4 months.
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