National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme

The Central Government has initiated the “National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme” to rehabilitate child labour in the country. This scheme focus on rehabilitation of children working in hazardous occupations and processes. Under this scheme, a survey is conducted of child workers and employment of adolescent workers and put them into NCLP Special Training Centres (STCs) to provide a formal system of education. This article examines the National Child Labour Project in detail. To know more about labour laws and rights in India:

Objectives of the Scheme

The objectives of the NCLP Scheme are given below:

To eliminate all forms of child labour.
To identify and withdraw of all child and adolescent workers in the project area from child labour.
To contribute to the withdrawal of all young workers from occupation and facilitating them with vocational training opportunities for such adolescents through the existing scheme of skill developments.
To create awareness amongst stakeholders, target communities, the orientation of NCLP and other functionaries on the issues of child labour.
To create monitoring, tracking and reporting system in Child Labour.

Applicability of the Scheme

The scheme applies to the following aspects that are listed below:

It applies to all child workers below 14 years of age in the identified target area.
Adolescent workers below 18 years of age in the target area engaged in hazardous works
Families of Child workers in the recognised target area

Key Highlights of the NCLP Scheme

Some of the key highlights and outcomes of the scheme are given below:

The Government contributes to the classification and eradication of all forms of child labour.
The Government contribute to the identification and withdrawal of adolescents from occupations and processes in the target area.
Successful mainstreaming into legal schools of all children who have been withdrawn from child labour and rehabilitated through the NCLPS
Adolescents withdrawn from hazardous occupations have benefited from skills training provided and connected to legally permissible occupations.
Better educated communities, specific target people and the public at large as a result of the Social Mobilization Programmes and Awareness about the sick effects of child labour.
Enhanced abilities to address the issue of the child labour through training of the NCLP staff and other functionaries.
To compensate the families actual loss in releasing the children to participate in the formal educational system, efforts need to be made to organize mothers of child workers into “Self-Help Groups(SHGs)” or to adapt such groups where they already exist.

Documents Required

The project society is required to furnish all the below listed financial documents/statements to the Ministry of Labour and Employment on a regular basis.

Agreement Bond
Audited Statement of Accounts (duly signed by CA)
Receipt and Payment Statement
Balance Sheet
Income and Expenditure Account

Note: If any expenditure statement could not be met because of a lack of funds in a particular financial year, the same has to be reflected in the liability side of the balance sheet mentioning year. The funds obtained from the Ministry of Labour and Employment department as well as the interest received on these grants must be reflected on the income side of the Income and Expenditure Account.

Implementation of the Scheme

National Child Labour Project Scheme was successfully implemented in coordination with State, District administration and Civil society. Elimination of Child Labour is the joint responsibility of the Ministry of Labour and Employment and the State Governments. This scheme is implemented in the areas of high concentration of child labour. The implementation of the project is carried out at the district level by the dedicated District Project Society (DPS) set up for the NCLPS.

Training Provided under NCLP

The appropriate Government or local authority is responsible for identifying children requiring special training and also organize such training in the following manner:

The special training will be provided based on specially designed appropriate learning material which is approved by the concerned academic authority.
It would be provided in classes held on the premises of the school, or in classes that is organised in safe residential facilities.
It would be provided by the teachers working in the school, or by the teachers specially appointed for this purpose.
Duration of the training under this scheme would be for a minimum period of 3 months which may be extended, based on the periodical assessment of the learning progress, for a maximum period which will not exceed 2 years.

Release of Funds

Under this NCLP scheme, funds are released directly to the Project Societies in 2 instalment stages. It will be based on the submission of specified periodic documents that are reflecting the process of project activities and also the District Project Society in turn issues fund to implementing agencies operating Special Training Centres (STCs). The first instalment for the months of April to September will be sanctioned if the followings are received:

Quarterly Progress Report (QPR) up to March of the last year
Intention to continue/implement the project in that financial year in the district.

The second instalment for the months of October to March will be released after the receipt of the following:

Quarterly Progress Reports (QPRs) up to June of the financial year
Annual Progress Report (APR) of the last financial year
Annual statement of accounts of the previous financial year audited by a professional Chartered Accountant
Utilisation Certificate (UC) for the grant-in-aid released earlier in the previous financial year

Allocation of Funds

Funds will be usually released to the project society for meeting the expenditure for the following purposes:

Administrative expenditure of the Project Society
Expenditure on Special Training Centre(s)
Survey
Awareness Campaign
Teachers' Training
Stipend for previous years (before DBT)

Stipend Provided under NCLP

Children in the Special Training Centers (STCs) would be paid a stipend of Rs.150/- per month. The stipend will be paid on the basis of a child having a minimum of 75% attendance in a month. The stipend would be paid directly by the Central Government as a direct benefit transfer into the account of the beneficiary. The stipend can be availed at the end of a pre-defined module of at least 3 months duration and maximum preferably of six months.

Concerned Authority

The District Project Society at the district level is the concerned authority responsible for the release of payment of stipend to the students/beneficiaries of NCLP Special Training Centers (STCs). Accordingly, at the district level, the Project Director/District Magistrate/District Collector serves as a verifier for uploading all the digitized data of beneficiary through the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) portal mainly for the payment of stipend to the beneficiary through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) by the Ministry.

Project Activities

A number of activities are expected to be undertaken as part of the Project. Some of them are listed below:

Child and Adolescent workers

Identification of the target population through a baseline survey
In case of Child Labour, the government withdraw the targeted children from work and providing them with required transitional options such as convergence with local schools for admission; Special Training Centres (STCs) for bridge education and pre-vocational and vocational training.
In the case of Adolescent workers, the Government withdraw adolescent workers from hazardous occupations and facilitating vocational training through existing schemes of Skill Development in the non-hazardous work.
Delivering income, social security, employment, developmental programme benefits, as relevant, to the target children and their families.
Social mobilization, mainstreaming of the child labour issues, advocacy and media campaign to raise public awareness
Stepping up the enforcement of child labour laws
Monitoring/Tracking Mechanisms to follow up child workers
Impact Evaluation at the end of the Plan Period

Survey Process

The survey must generally provide the following information

The magnitude of the child labour
Its classification by the processes and occupations (hazardous and non- hazardous), and its geographical distribution
Full details such as the name of the child/adolescent and their father/guardian‟s name, age, gender, level of literacy, address and occupations & processes from where child/adolescent would be withdrawn
Economic conditions of parents
Access to primary education
A sum of up to Rs.4 lakhs per district to be surveyed can be spent on this survey. This would cover all the expenses such as reproducing the survey proforma into the local language, training of enumerators, actual fieldwork, the printing of forms, honorarium/contractual payments, the printing of survey report and digitization of data.
The survey report must be formally approved by the District Project Society before being forwarded to the Ministry of Labour and Employment. The survey must be conducted by all the project societies to evaluate the impact of the project within 3 years since the last survey. Failure to conduct a survey within the time frame of 3 years may result in discontinuation of subsidies from the Ministry.

Findings of the Survey

The information would be shared with the Governments both in hard copy and soft copy formats, and all the reports will be kept in the safe custody of the Project Society. This method would be operational until the automated Child Labour Monitoring, Tracking and Reporting System (CLMTRS) is created.

Child Labour Monitoring, Tracking and Reporting System (CLMTRS)

The CLMTRS is to be revealed by the Ministry. The details can be entered by the Project Society in the Child Labour Monitoring, Tracking and Reporting System (CLMTRS) once it is functional. The beneficiary tracking will be for 1 year after mainstreaming in the case of Child Labour and withdrawal of adolescent worker from hazardous processes/occupations.