Cuttack, June 20: The Cuttack district administration would begin a drive in and around the city from tomorrow to bring child labourers to schools.

Officials said a special squad formed for the purpose would conduct raids during the next four days to identify and rescue child labourers for rehabilitation under the Child Labour Convergence Programme. The special squad would comprise labour enforcement officers, administration officers and local police personnel.

Cuttack and Kalahandi are the two districts in Orissa where the programme is under way under National Child Labour Project (NCLP).

“The raids have been planned as part of implementation of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)-funded programme to gradually eliminate child labour in the district,” collector Kishore Kumar Mohanty told The Telegraph today.

“The programme envisages coordination of services under several schemes for poverty alleviation and income generation, education, health, welfare of women and children to create a socio-economic state in which children would rather go to school than work,” Mohanty explained.

Under the convergence programme, the panchayati raj is expected to take care of parents of the child labourers under employment guarantee programmes.

Similarly, the industry department is expected to extend necessary assistance to provide vocational training to children who are rescued, officials said.

“The raids during the four days will target areas with concentration of child labour in hazardous sectors of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation area, Tigiria, Badamba, Narsinghpur, Athagarh, Tangi, Choudwar, Salepur and Mahanga,” assistant labour officer (ALO) H.K. Pradhan told The Telegraph today.

Cuttack district has an estimated 14,509 children working as labourers in all the 14 blocks. Of them, nearly 3,500 are engaged in hazardous sectors, especially in beedi, matchbox and firecracker factories and stone quarries.

“In 2010-11, around 100 raids were conducted to identify and rescue child labourers. In the process, 38 cases were registered by the labour department. This year, we have planned to intensify the raids,” the ALO said.

“Besides, five block-level resource centres in the child labour concentration area will be set up soon for generating awareness and developing sensitivity to the problem amongst the local people,” he added.