The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Action plan to eliminate child labour yielding results

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Nov 09, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Action plan to eliminate child labour yielding results

By R. Ilangovan

SALEM, NOV. 8. The Tamil Nadu Government's action plan to achieve total elimination of child labour from all hazardous occupations by 2005 and all non-hazardous occupations by 2007 is being pursued in right earnest.

Tamil Nadu, one of the 11 States with a high density of child labour, has initiated stringent measures to eliminate the social scourge, which still proliferates in a few districts, particularly in the western zone. The Government has launched an action programme in Salem, Namakkal, Erode, Coimbatore, Dharmapuri Tiruchi, Virudhunagar, Dindigul, Thanjavur, Kancheepuram, Vellore, Madurai, Tirunelveli and Chennai, where child labour is rampant. These districts promote industries such as weaving, power looms, coir threading, paper mills, artificial diamonds, cracker units, printing, beedi rolling, tannery and stainless steel units.

High dropout rate

The Government has realised the seriousness of the issue, particularly after the 1995 study on school dropout. The dropout at both primary and middle school levels, which witnessed a rapid decline till 1997, has stagnated at a particular point forcing the policymakers to try alternative measures to achieve zero-dropout.

At the primary level, the dropout is 15 per cent with a higher percentage among girls. At the middle school level — the potential age for child labour — the dropout rate is 26 per cent. Dharmapuri records the highest dropout rate in both primary and middle school levels, while Virudhunagar stands first at the primary level. Erode takes number one spot at the middle level among girls.

In 2003, the Government initiated an integrated action plan against child labour. With the Inspector of Labour, Salem and the Society for Monitoring and Implementation of Child Labour Elimination (SMILE) in lead, the district administration formed a Child Labour Prevention Squad, comprising officials from the Education and Health Departments too. The then-Collector, S. Ramachandran, led raids on many silver anklet-making units and rescued several children.

"We have to maintain a sustained pressure on the group that employs children as labourers," says Inspector of Labour, G. Mahalingam.

The combined efforts have played an effective deterrent role against the exploiters of children . Official teams have carried out 112 joint raids during 2003 and 2004. The Office of the Inspector of Labour, Salem, has undertaken 6,830 inspections in these two years against shops, catering units, cracker shops, automobile workshops, IMFL shops, book-binding units, handlooms, coir units and other factories.

Special schools

With the help of SMILE, almost all these children have been rehabilitated in schools and special schools. SMILE runs 30 special schools in Salem and 10 in Namakkal. According to its Project Officer P.V. Viswanathan, since 1995, 9,534 children have been rescued and 5,277 of them have been mainstreamed into formal schools.

But, according to a recent survey, the district still has around 8,000 child labourers. The officials, however, are optimistic of liberating all the children, thus promising them a healthy and productive childhood in the days to come.

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