A television programme has helped reunite a mentally-challenged teenager with his parents over two-and-a-half years after he had gone missing.

Family members of the 13-year-old boy were watching the news bulletin on 'Doordarshan Kolkata', when they spotted their ward among the inmates of a home for mentally ill persons, in Nadia district of West Bengal, a state government release said.

The child's father Kartik Shaw immediately contacted the police, which got in touch with the Doordarshan news unit, it said.

The home at Nakashipra area of the district is run by Moslem Munshi, an employee of the State Sericulture Department, the release said.

Munshi said the boy was sent to 'Nirmal Hriday' by the District Child Welfare Committee around one-and-a-half-years ago.

The child had gone missing from a field near his Ahiritola residence in north Kolkata on February 10, 2017, following which his father lodged a police complaint, the release said.

The Nadia district administration rescued the boy last year from Karimpur, and initially kept him at a government home there.

"The parents of the boy contacted me, came to Nakashipara and met him on Sunday. They could not hold back their tears seeing the boy after such a long time," Munshi said.

The child will be handed over to his parents after completion of formalities at the office of the Child Welfare Committee on Thursday, he told PTI.