Furnish details of child labour, HC tells govt

The High Court on Thursday directed the State government to furnish details pertaining to child labour in the State.

Hearing a suo motu petition on implementation of Right to Education (RTE) Act, a division bench, comprising Chief Justice D H Waghela and Justice B V Nagarathna, directed the government to furnish details regarding the number of child labour cases identified and number of children rescued along with action taken against those employing child labour.

 he directions came in the wake of the government’s submission that the survey conducted by the government to analyse the reasons for dropout has found out that child labour is one of them.

During the hearing, the government also submitted that the outcome of several meetings and incentives has ensured that there has been an increase in students from 1.5 lakh to 3.5 lakh, but maintained that the drop out rate remains at 1.7 lakh.

The Chief Justice said drop out rate should further decrease. “Make sure the dropout rate is reduced drastically and ultimately comes to nil if not, all these efforts, including meetings and incentives to bring back children will be wasted effort,” he observed.

When the government submitted that steps to consider a child, who remains absent for more than seven days, as dropout, instead of earlier 60 days, social activist Kathyayini Chamaraj, assisting the court in the matter, submitted that this will increase the drop out rate further and sought an amendment to Rule 6 of Right to Education (RTE) Act in such a manner that the attendance authority will comply with norms of conducting an inquiry into the reasons for the child remaining absent.