Telangana: Special schools for rescued child labourers

Hyderabad: The Telangana state government will soon construct special schools in the state for the rescued child labourers. The TS government has sent proposals to the Centre in this regard. Based on this proposal, the Central government has directed the state government to conduct a survey on the status of child labour in the State and also get an estimate on the number of school dropouts every year.

To conduct this survey, the Central government has allotted Rs 4 lakh to each state. Principal Secretary of Labour Department, Shashank Goel said that the survey had started in Telangana state and currently, is being conducted in the districts.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, he said, “Education and labour departments are conducting the survey separately on school dropouts and child labour respectively. In 2016-17, the labour department had conducted Operation Muskaan across the state and rescued 880 children. Meanwhile, according to the education department in 2016-17, there were 21,467 children who were not studying in any school in the state.”

Mr Shashank Goel said that the aim of the state was to end all forms of child labour and bring all the children into mainstream education by protecting their right to education.

He further added that after completion of the survey they would prepare a report on how many special schools were required in each district. This would depend on the number of child labourers and school dropouts tabulated in the survey. He said after preparation, the report would be sent to the Central Government for their approval.