National Coalition for Education stresses on need to eradicate child labour menace

Bhubaneswar:National Coalition for Education (NCE India) organized a media conference on child labour issues in Orissa Secretariat Services Association (OSSA), herein Bhubaneswar. The conference was organized to take stock on the development on eradicating child labour after five years of the declaration of the central and state governments in 10th October, 2006 to ban domestic child labour and to implement Child labour and Prohibition Act 1986.
Addressing the press conference, State Advocacy Officer of NCE Mr. Naba Kishor Pujari said that the analysis of child labour issues falls short because of the lack of data regarding child labour in government website. However, a recent reply of the state labour and employment department , Govt. of Odisha to an information sought under RTI reveals that from 10th October, 2006 to June 2011,only 1656 child labours have been identified, withdrawn and rehabilitated  working in roadside eateries and serving as domestic servants in the entire state.
He also said that, irrespective of what is shown in the official statistics, we say that the phenomenon of child labour is significant because, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 is a legislation to address hazardous industrial child labour in a limited way as the purview of the Act covers only the organized sectors of production. As it is inbuilt in the law, this Act has excluded a vast section of toiling children in the unorganized sectors, as over 90 percent of the Labour force in India is accounted for by the unorganized sectors of production.
2001 census report reveals that 377594 no. of child labours working in different workplace. Due to the rapid globalization and consumerism, the rate of increase of employing child labour has been grown enormously. NSSO Estimate of Child Labour in Major Indian States, 2004-05 also reveals that 440000 children Independent research shows that the total no. of child labour in Odisha crosses 6 lakhs. The number is humorously increasing.

The press conference was also addressed by Mr. Kamalakanta Tripathy, State Secretary, All Utkal Primary Teachers Federation, Mr. Anil Pradhan, Steering Committee Member, NCE and State Research and Documentation Officer of NCE, Ms. Subhashree Das.