GUWAHATI, March 23 - Amidst the never-ending debates revolving surrogacy and taboos associated with adoption, Assam is all set to find its first single dad!
Meet Monoj Chakraborty, a 47-year-old Mathematics teacher of Hailakandi district, who is all set to be given the nod for single male parenthood by the State Adoption Resource Agency (SARA).
It was in 2016 that Chakraborty, who teaches in Barnagad Girls� High School in Algapur in Hailakandi, had expressed his desire to adopt a child, a first-of-its-kind development in the State.
Sources in the Social Welfare department confirmed the development saying that this would officially be the first such instance where a male single parent would be given the privilege of adopting a child in Assam.
�Very rarely will you find a male opting for single parenthood in India. These are rarest of the rare cases in the entire country. With changing social mores, single women, however, are less skeptical compared to males. In Assam, till last year, more than nine single woman had opted for adoption,� an official requesting anonymity told The Assam Tribune.
He asserted that the Government is constantly trying to improve the level of awareness vis-�-vis legal adoption. �We are happy to come across individuals like Monoj Chakraborty who opted to do so. Almost all the pre-adoption formalities including the house study report have been approved in his case. He will soon be contacted in this regard,� he said, adding, �As mandated by the law, a male can only be allowed to adopt a boy child.�
When contacted over phone, Chakraborty conceded that he had applied for adoption sometime in 2016 and said that he is still to get any formal confirmation from the SARA.
�Some officials did come for home study. I have also shared my annual income details and other relevant information sought by them,� he said.
On his motivation behind adoption, Chakroborty who has been in the teaching profession since 1995, in his formal submission before SARA, had stated, �I love children and personally believe that a child can bring joy and happiness to a family.�
There are at present 19 specialized agencies in the State through which both in-country and inter-country adoption of children takes place.
In the last 10 (till mid-2017) years, more than 430 children were adopted from the specialised adoption agencies in the State, of which 26 were inter-country adoption. These 26 parents are based in countries like Italy, USA, Malaysia, New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, France and Spain.
Further, of the 439 adoptions facilitated in the last 10 years or so from the adoption agencies, 242 of them were baby girls.
