A member of ASHA during the survey. Telegraph picture

A Ranchi-based social outfit has embarked on a mission to trace a whopping number of 60,000 children — who drop out of schools to tag along with their parents, mostly farmers on the lookout for livelihood options — to other states once the harvest season ends.

Association for Social and Human Awareness (ASHA) has joined hands with Calcutta NGO Tomorrow’s Foundation to conduct a three-month survey to track down the children. It started on June 8 and will continue till September.

A 15-member team is carrying out the 90-day survey in 14 villages in 10 districts — Gumla, Ranchi, Khunti, Seraikela-Kharsawan, Chaibasa, Bokaro, West Singhbhum, Simdega, Latehar and Lohardaga.

Till now, nearly 9,000 children (one to 14 years), who migrate to Odisha, Bihar and Uttarakhand among other states, have been traced. The team members are preparing the lists of children who have returned along with their parents’ names, addresses and contact numbers.

ASHA will not only bring back these children but also rehabilitate them by putting them up at seasonal migration hostels and take measures to reconnect them with the mainstream society. “We are going to mount pressure on the government to admit them in local state-run schools and also help us open seasonal migration hostels so that they remain in their respective villages once the harvest season gets over by October,” said secretary of ASHA Ajay Kumar.

ASHA and Tomorrow’s Foundation are planning to jointly open nearly 1,000 seasonal migration hostels in 10 districts where the survey is on for accommodating the children. In each hostel, nearly 60 such children will stay. Besides free food, they will get all basic facilities. “We are also going to appoint two teachers to coach them according to their age after which they will be admitted at government schools,” Kumar said.

The NGOs will rope in village mukhiyas to help them. The lists will be handed to the mukhiyas for keeping a tab on the children.

“We are also planning to start some vocational courses and income generation activities for the villagers so that they have reasons to stay back once the harvest season gets over,” Kumar said.

Every year, lakhs of rural families dependent on agriculture leave Jharkhand to work at brick kilns, tobacco and carpet factories in other states. Once the harvest season starts in June, they return to cultivate their land and stay on till October.

The children start going to local schools but again drop out once the parents get ready to leave the villages.

The NGOs will also generate awareness among rural masses about the need to educate their children so that they are not pulled out of schools.