The government has failed to appoint a chairperson and six members for the Bihar State Commission for Protection of Child Rights though the tenure of the incumbents ended two-and-a-half months ago.

Members and the chairperson of the commission are appointed for a three-year term. The tenure of the former six members — Aparna Singh, Shipra Kumari, Lalita Singh, Vimal Kumar Jain, Shivshankar Prasad and Nishindra Kinjalk — ended on August 31, while the term of earlier chairperson, Nisha Jha, ended a day earlier.

The appointment is co-ordinated by the social welfare department and is still under consideration of the government.

Rajit Punhani, secretary, social welfare department, said: “The appointment of the members and the chairperson is under consideration. In the meanwhile, the secretary, N. Vijyalakshmi, is in charge.”

After the constitution of the commission 2010, its members came up with several recommendations. But before these recommendations could be made available to the government for action, they have to be passed at a board meeting of the commission.

Nishindra Kinjalk, a former member at the commission, said: “I had made over 10 recommendations to the chairperson of the commission but none of them was placed in board meeting of the commission so that they could be passed before it could be sent to the government for action. All the recommendations made by the commission to the government are binding.” He added: “I had recommended that after due investigation on issues such as deaths of children in Muzaffarpur (because of suspected encephalitis), review of midday meal scheme, preservation of heritage and promotion of tradition culture of Bihar and spreading child rights awareness through print media.”

Kinjalk’s colleague from the commission, Vimal Kumar Jain, said: “Despite a dedicated team, we failed to do justice to the children and the purpose of the commission because of the dearth of infrastructure or the incompetence.”