During our visit to Freedom Children Home we had an opportunity to observe an inspection by the Government. Ms. A. Mangayarkaras, aka "Lady Queen," and Ms. S. Premasheela from the Tamil Nadu Governor's office arrived at the orphanage only few minutes after we did. Upon arrival, they began interviewing the orphanage director, the staff and the children. It was very interesting to see a real live inspection and we were fortunate enough to interview them afterward.
We learned that the Governor of Tamil Nadu had specially appointed them as under secretaries of his office recently in order to conduct surprise inspections of all the orphanages in the Tamil Nadu district. Interestingly, neither of them actually worked in social welfare. Ms. Mangayarkaras was from the information technology department and Ms. Premasheela was from the Department of Secretariat. This was done in order to ensure that no one knew about the inspections and to reduce corruption.
Through our conversation, we were also able to understand what the government inspectors were looking for and also received the inspection sheet. We learned important information such as; requirement for registration, need for orphanages to visit the government office once a month and how orphanages had to have at least 2 months expense in their bank account. This signaled good initiatives by the government because the inspections and new regulations increased the standards of all the orphanages, however the government was not providing any financial aid to help meet those standards.
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