As many as 72,780 children were brought to the mainstream under child labour eradication programme NCLP in the current fiscal, Parliament was informed today.
In 2013-14, as many as 64,050 children which were brought to the mainstream under the NCLP, Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said in a written reply.
The total number of working children in age group of 5-14 years in the country has declined from 1.26 crore as per the census 2001 to 43.53 lakh as per the Census 2011.
The maximum number of working children are in Uttar Pradesh (8,96,301) followed by Maharashtra (4,96,916) and Bihar (4,51,590) as per Census 2011.
The Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, prohibits employment of children below 14 years of age in certain occupations and processes.
The government is running NCLP since 1988 by which children withdrawn from prohibited employment are rehabilitated through special training centres.
The minister said that a bill to amend Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act 1986 has been introduced in Rajya Sabha in 2012 whereby employment of children below 14 years is completely prohibited.
In a separate reply, the minister said that as many as 1,098 violations (under Child Labour Act) were reported in 2014, out which 1,054 cases were prosecuted with 785 convictions.
Similarly, in 2013, the number of such violations were 10,604 out of which 4,515 came up for prosecution with 1,074 convictions.
The number violations under child labour has come down since 2011 as the number of such violations were 14,962, out of which 6,017 case came up for prosecution with 995 convictions.
In 2012, the number of such violations reported were 12,998, out of which 5,018 came up for prosecution with 1,114 convictions.
