New Delhi: Amid a heated debate over
bringing back unaccounted money stashed abroad, a child rights
outfit has claimed that child labour generates Rs 1.2 lakh
crore of blackmoney every year in India.
According to a report 'Capital Corruption: Child
Labour in India' prepared by Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), the
figure was arrived at by calculating the number of child
labourers, the income earned by them and the illicit profits
being generated by employers by not appointing adult workers.
"The greed for maximisation of profit fuels the demand
for child labour, with children as cheapest form of labour.
Child labour, corruption and flow of black money, fuel and
sustain each other in an illicit nexus that only profits the
employers and the middlemen," the study said.
On arriving at the figure, the study said there were
around six crore child labourers in the country who assumingly
work for approximately 200 days in a year on an average cost
of Rs 15 per child per day.
"The amount so calculated is Rs 18,000 crore in a
year. Now, if these six crore child labourers can be
substituted with the six crore adults with an average floor
wage of Rs 115 per day, one labourer would generate Rs
1,38,000 crore.
"The difference between these two amount amounts to Rs
1.20 lakh crore," the study claimed.
It said this amount should have been paid by the
employers to the workers but they instead employed underpaid
and overworked child labourers. "The employer also did not
report any income to the government, evaded taxes, making Rs
1.2 lakh crore illegal money in the country," it said.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, June 12, 2011, 18:13