Special drive against child labour launched

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, November 14

Deputy Commissioner Varinder Sharma today launched a special awareness campaign under National Child Labour project to make the people aware about the menace of child labour.

Launching the posters of the campaign, the Deputy Commissioner said the main aim of the campaign was to wipe out this curse from the district. He said under the project serious efforts were being made by the district administration to ensure that the exploitation of children through child labour was checked at every cost. He said the district administration had been making all efforts to make sure that students were not forced to do work.

The Deputy Commissioner said the administration was running 27 schools where children were imparted primary education free of cost. He said besides education, these schools were carrying out various activities for the overall personality development of these children. Various activities would be now carried out by the administration in the Child Labour Week to be observed by the administration.

He said the provisions of the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986 were being implemented strongly to ensure the well-being of children. He said the recent amendments in the Act had made the provision of stringent punishment for the offenders.

Also, Section 3 of the Act now debars any child below the age of 14 from working in any hazardous or non-hazardous institution, adding that as per Section 3 (a) any adolescent (14-18 years) may work in non-hazardous institution but they could not be forced to work for more than five hours.

The violation of these provisions could lead to punishment of six months to two years of imprisonment and fine of Rs 20,000-Rs 50,000. Also, if the parents of any child force him to work, they too could be penalised for it.

Meanwhile, the DC lauded the NGO and the SAS foundation for taking keen part in this awareness drive. He said such endeavours on part of the NGOs would be instrumental in making this campaign a mass movement.

On this occasion, project director of the National Child Labour Project Sukhjinder Singh and president of the SAS Foundation Ramanpreet Kaur were also present.