The Union Territory of Lakshadweep has not even a single registered child care institution under the Juvenile Justice Act, relying instead on community and family-based care systems or administrative frameworks overseen by local departments, the government said on Friday.Minister of State Savitri Thakur said the Ministry of Women and Child Development is implementing the centrally sponsored scheme, namely ‘Mission Vatsalya’, to deliver various services for children in difficult circumstances, which include both institutional and non-institutional care services.”Tamil Nadu is leading the tally with 317 child care institutions (CCIs) funded under Mission Vatsalya during the financial year 2025-26. West Bengal has 208 such institutions, Uttar Pradesh (191) and Odisha (184). Incidentally, Lakshadweep has no registered child care institution,” she told the Lok Sabha.The other Union territories of Dadra and Nager Haveli has four child care institutions, Ladakh has 9 such centers, Andaman and Nicobar Islands (14), Chandigarh (10), Delhi (39), Jammu and Kashmir (60) and Puducherry (29).Thakur said the TrackChild portal and Khoya-Paya application have been integrated into the unified Mission Vatsalya portal to help trace missing/found children. The portal is also integrated with the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS), enabling police to match FIRs of missing children with the database.She said the Mission Vatsalya Scheme also provides for emergency outreach services (24x7x365) for children in difficult circumstances through Child Helpline (1098) which is integrated with Emergency Response Support System-112 (ERSS-112) Helpline of Ministry of Home Affairs.