When he was five years old, S. Mohan was not going to school. Instead, he was working with hazardous chemicals in a silver anklet-making factory in Salem district of Tamil Nadu for a paltry Rs 5 a day. His father, a labourer, was in debt and needed supplementary income.
Fast forward to 2013, Mohan, now 21-years old, is a software engineer, thanks to the Labour Ministry’s National Child Labour Project (NCLP), a scheme floated in 1988 to rehabilitate child labour.
Ramalingam (21) from Nammakal district was also working, along with his parents and elder brother, in a powerloom, till the NCLP surveyors spotted him. He is now studying medicine and aims to be a doctor.
“Children are the backbone of a country. They need opportunities and help,” said Ramalingam.
Both Mohan and Ramalingam were in Delhi to take part in the three-day SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation) workshop on child labour, organised by the Labour Ministry and International Labour Organisation. Around 7,000 children have been rehabilitated in the two districts in Tamil Nadu in the past 10 years, State officials said.
The NCLP identifies children engaged in hazardous occupations and processes, withdraws them for work and puts them in special schools before mainstreaming them. They are given mid-day meals and a stipend of Rs 150 a month.
“We are soon going to go in for direct benefits transfer for this amount,” said A.C. Pandey, Joint Secretary, Labour Ministry.
Overall, there are 7,311 such schools under the NCLP scheme and about 8.52 lakh children have been mainstreamed into formal education.
Pandey said there had been a 45 per cent decline in child labour in India from 90.45 lakh in 2004-05 to 49 lakh in 2009-19, mainly due to MGNREGA, the rural job scheme, and Right to Education. Assured of 100 days work under the job scheme, parents are now sending children to school, which is making all the difference, he added.