New Delhi, Feb 16: The Centre in cooperation with the US Department of Labour and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) today launched a 40 million US Dollar programme aimed at eliminating child labour from ten hazardous industries.
Labour Minister Sahib Singh Verma, who was present at the joint launch event, told reporters that the programme was aimed at preventing and eliminating hazardous child labour by enhancing human, social and physical capacity of target communities. This is the largest ever child labour programme being executed by the ILO at the country level. US Deputy Under-Secretary of Labour Arnold Levine and ILO Executive Director Kari Tapiola were also present at the launch of the programme jointly funded by the US Department of Labour and the Government of India. Both are sharing the total cost of the plan while the ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour will be the executing agency. Verma said the project for elimination of child labour in selected hazardous sectors is a collaborative effort to provide programme support in a coordinated manner to on-going efforts undertaken by the Centre towards a progressively child labour free country. There are 11 million working children in the country and the new project is one of the biggest initiatives to help meet the target of eliminating child labour from the country by 2007, he added. Bureau Report