India has a 22-year-old law that prohibits child labour in the country but still several incidents of alleged child labour come to light on a regular basis from almost every part of the country. Now, the Government is all set to launch a multi-pronged attack on it because several other countries have started canceling exports from India because of the use of child labour in the production units.

According to the report, the Union Labour Ministry is likely to expand the list of hazardous occupations to restrict the child employment in such industries. At the same time, the ministry is also working towards widely reviewing and amending the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986. The government is also about to put a detailed protocol in place for rehabilitating and repatriating rescued child labourers.

The successive governments at centre have always stood for constitutional, statutory and developmental measures to eliminate the cause of child labor. The constitution of India has deliberately integrated appropriate provisions to provide compulsory universal elementary education and protection from child labor as well for children.

However, the Chief Justice of India (CJI), K G Balakrishnan, lamented that all the anti-child labor laws were not being implemented across the country. According to him, there are several proper legislations in place just to protect children and to work for children’s welfare but it needs greater will power to implement the law.

Several newspapers and NGOs have reported on several occasions about the alleged the use of children by Indian suppliers to global retailers. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights had also written to the Gujarat Government on the death of a 10-year-old and a 16-year-old at a plastic factory in the state.

On Thursday, the Child Labour Technical Advisory Committee held a meeting headed by the Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research and recommended to add nine more occupations to the list of risky jobs under the Child Labour Act.

At present, the list has 15 occupations and 57 processes and the new proposal would add other processes involving the use of excessive heat and cold, timber handling and loading, food processing, beverages industry, diving and mechanical lumbering.

According to a ministry official, the states with high incidents of Child labour such as Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra will have to work hard to restrict it.