Child labour on the rise in India says Govt

New Delhi, Nov 8: Two decades after Parliament passed the Child Labour (Prevention and Regulation) Act, the number of working children is still on the rise.

The Labour Ministry today released the latest statistics on working children, which say the number of employed children has gone up from 11.3 million in 1991 to 12.6 million in 2001.

Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan account for most of the increase, the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Labour and Employment was told today.

In Uttar Pradesh, working children numbered a whopping 1.9 million in 2001 where as the number was 1.4 million ten years ago when Uttaranchal was part of the state.

Rajasthan has nearly doubled its child labour population. As against 7.7 lakh in 1991, the state had in 2001 nearly 1.2 million working children, says the Labour Ministry.

West Bengal witnessed a marginal increase from 7.1 lakh to 8.5 lakh.

There is, however, good news from Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, two states that had shown a substantial decline in child labour in 2001.

In Andhra Pradesh, the number of working children came down to 1.3 million in 2001 from 1.6 million in 1991 and the decline in Maharashtra was from 1 million to 7.6 lakh.

Labour and Employment Minister Oscar Fernandes said the central and state governments conducted 2.3 million inspections in the past 8 years to detect and release working children.

The efforts led to the release 123,000 working children and conviction of 23,000 people, Mr Fernandes told the consultative committee, which held its meeting here today.

Mr Fernandes said the government would extend the rehabilitation programme for working children to all districts in the country during the Eleventh Plan (2007-12).

The government wanted to eliminate child labour and enroll every child between 5 and 14 years in schools, he told the MPs.

The government's rehabilitation programme for released working children is run through the National Child Labour Projects, presently operating in only 250 of the about 600 districts in the country.

The assurance follows the government's ban on child labour in restaurants, dhabas and homes from October 10.

According to the Labour Ministry, child labour is now prohibited in 15 hazardous occupations and 57 other jobs.

Child rights activists, however, criticise the government for not doing enough for rehabilitation of the released working children, who they say are in most of the cases the only bread earners for their families.

UNI