Rs 8.5 billion meant for eliminating child labour lies unused in government coffers

George Iype in New Delhi

India celebrates the 50th anniversary of her Independence this year. But for an estimated 44 million to 100 million children in servitude, freedom means bondage as a whopping Rs 8.5 billion meant to eradicate child labour in the country lies unutilised for more than two years.

In the last decade, the federal government announced a number action plans and framed new laws to ban child labour, which the Supreme Court recently termed 'an all-India evil.'

But child rights activists say the government's Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act, 1986 -- CLPRA -- lacks teeth as no official agency is empowered to implement this law.

"It is sad and cruel that millions of children are in bondage when India is celebrating its 50th anniversary," says Swami Angnivesh, chairperson of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front.

Activists like Swami Agnivesh think it is not lack of funds, but political will that has got India the dubious distinction of having the largest number of child labourers in the world.

Then Congress prime minister P V Narasimha Rao in his Independence Day speech on August 15, 1994 had announced a new scheme with a Rs 8.5 billion allocation to abolish child labour in the country.

'Our Independence has no meaning unless we save these toiling children in bondage,' Rao then said.

But nearly two-and-a-half years later, the scheme has not taken off, thanks to the absence of a 'blueprint' from the federal labour ministry.

Soon after Rao's announcement of the bonanza to rehabilitate child workers across the country, the ministry started deliberations with state governments on how to disburse the Rs 8.5 billion.

The ministry, then, selected 133 child labour-prone districts in the country and released a pittance of Rs 500,000 each to these districts under the guise of rehabilitating and educating the children.

But ministry records say the remaining Rs 8.4335 billion is yet to be disbursed as it has been waiting for a national scheme to alleviate the plight of the child workers.

"We have not been able to launch the scheme as different state governments are yet to submit blueprints for the child labour eradication," a top official at the labour ministry told Rediff On The NeT.

Activists allege government callousness has scuttled the prime ministerial promise to rehabilitate child workers.

"The government programmes to ban child labour all these years have been mere eye-wash," says Kailash Satyarthi, chairperson of the New Delhi-based South Asian Coalition of Child Servitude.

He pointed out that till date, the government has not prosecuted any factory owner who employs child workers in hazardous industries manufacturing glass, matches, fireworks, tobacco, cement etc.

According to Agnivesh and Satyarthi, it is not genuine desire, but global pressure that compels the Indian government to announce half-baked scheme to eradicate child labour in the country.

Many believe the government programmes to end child labour is forced by the trade-related pressure from Germany and the United States, which have boycotted Indian carpets made of child labour.

Compelled by the campaign unleashed by child rights organisations in Indian and abroad, Germany and the United States, the major buyers of Indian carpets, have stopped importing carpets woven by child labour.

Last year, the European Community also threatened to place restrictions on the import of carpets from India, in view of the prevalence of child labor in the industry.

In the past two years, the International Labour Organisation's conference in Geneva had singled out India as the worst offender in terms of the highest incidence of child labour in the world.

The Indian government statistics say the country has 17.5 million child workers, but ILO estimates the number to be between 44 to 100 million.

Experts say the Indian government has failed to liberate the bonded children mainly because of an absence of any administrative mechanism too implement laws like the CLPRA.

"It is high time the government set up a special task force to look after the problems of child labourers in the country," said R P Prasad, an economist working with the ILO's New Delhi Office.

"The federal government has no separate department or agency that deals with child labour," he told Rediff On the NeT.

Activists pledge that they will not allow the government callousness to continue.

This year, SACCS plans to testify before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to expose how the government has been initiating only whitewashing exercises to pacify the international community on the child labour issue.

BLLF and SAACS activists also plan to organise a massive rally of child workers in New Delhi on August 15, when the government will hold the country's 50th anniversary celebrations.