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Sahebganj DC Ashok Sharma, his Ranchi counterpart Vinay Kumar Choubey and labour commissioner Sunil Kumar Burnwal at the event in Ranchi on Tuesday. (Hardeep Singh)
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A child scrubbing utensils at a roadside dhaba is too common a sight in Jharkhand for a second look. Putting the child out of work and in school under Right to Education Act norms will draw howls of protest from her and her parents as it will only render them hungry.
Fighting this grim reality is the state labour department, which wants parents get jobs and access to government schemes so that children can go to schools. But labour commissioner Sunil Kumar Burnwal also knows they can’t do it alone and needs stakeholders to do the job together.
For starters, there is no latest database of working children in Jharkhand. The state quotes the 2011 census citing 4.65 lakh working children, a figure that’s 11 years old.
A state-level stakeholders’ workshop in Ranchi on Tuesday raised these valid points before deputy commissioners of Ranchi and Sahebganj Vinay Kumar Choubey and Ashok Sharma, as well as 40 officials from social welfare department, Jharkhand Education Project Council under Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, Unicef and NGO Vikas Bharti.
The labour department, implementing the International Labour Organisation project “Converging against child labour support for India model” in Ranchi and Sahebganj since May 2011, runs 30 and 51 National Child Labour Project (NCLP) schools in Ranchi and Sahebganj. These offer non-formal education, vocational training and supplementary food to children rescued from labour.
While addressing the gathering of government officials, Burnwal said the department was trying a holistic approach and invited their cooperation.
“We are identifying child labourers and linking them with NCLP schools. We give them midday meals and involve them in different sports, teach them vocational courses ranging from computer training to making vermicompost. This is all due to efforts of government officials,” he said.
Burnwal added that compiling data of working children to arrive at the latest figure was a priority. “We need to know the figure to identify how many minors work and direct our attention to their families. If parents are linked to MGNREGS, Indira Awas Yojana, poverty alleviation and self-employment schemes, kids won’t have to work,” he said.
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