VIJAYAWADA: District Collector Navin Mittal on Thursday made a fervent appeal to every conscientious citizen to stop for a while on spotting any instance of child labour and do what best one can to counsel the parents concerned. He asserted that involving people would form part of efforts to make next drive against child labour in the third week of December in the district.

Addressing a workshop organised by the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) district unit here, Mr. Mittal said that though the frequent drives being taken up made a significant impact, there were still some boys and girls seen doing work instead of continuing education. "We have to give a serious thought to it. Let each one of us stop for two minutes on seeing any such child and try to find out what actually is the problem," he added. Citing a recent instance, Mr. Mittal said that a boy who was tending the cattle came out with a curious explanation saying that he took up that work, as it was a holiday for the school.

The incident happened at Mantada in Pamidimukkala mandal. It was a tricky situation whether to advise the boy against doing work on holidays also. The overall spirit of the drive should be to ensure that children were not exploited in any field of activity.

The Collector said that the NGOs should lay special emphasis on bringing dropout children back to school and help in protecting the educational needs of these children. All steps would be taken to see that the district would be labour-free soon. Mr. Mittal said that the punishment for those engaging any child as bonded labour would be very severe and there would be a minimum of three years imprisonment.

The sub-divisional magistrate was empowered to give this punishment directly. An instance of bonded labour came to light recently wherein a boy belonging to the district was given away as bonded labour to work in brick kiln in Karimnagar.

The agreement was that the owners would pay Rs. 10,000 per year. The boy was rescued after the owners tried to solicit buyers of the boy's kidneys.

NCLP project director K. Sivasankar said that workshops would be conducted in all mandals and municipalities to discuss and make further efforts to free child labourers. Sector-specific efforts would be made to root out child labour in agriculture, industry and households.

Agriculture joint director S. Jagadeeswara Reddy, assistant commissioner of labour Nageswara Rao, child line centre coordinator A. Ramesh, and others were present.

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