Labour and Industrial

Online portal PENCIL launched by Union Government for effective implementation of National Child Labour Project

26.09.2017

Child labour is a social evil which hampers development of future generation of society and deprives children of their childhood. Poverty and illiteracy of a child’s parents, the family’s social and economic circumstances, lack of awareness about the harmful effects of child labour, lack of educational opportunities are some of the factors leading to prevalence of child labour. Due to the menace of child labour, children from poor section of society are not able to gain the skills and education required for getting decent work as an adult. In order to eliminate child labour, effective implementation of legislative provision is much needed. In this backdrop, online portal PENCIL introduced to connect Central Government to State Government, District and to all Project Societies for effective implementation of National Child Labour Project (NCLP).

“PENCIL” is an electronic platform for effective enforcement for no child labour developed by Ministry of Labour and Employment launched by Home Minister on 26th September 2017 in the National Conference on Child Labour. State Labour Ministers and Labour Secretaries of the State, Secretaries of Central Ministries, District Nodal Officers as well as the Project Directors for National Child Labour Project (NCLP) attended the conference. In order to create a robust monitoring mechanism for both enforcement of the legislative provisions and effective implementation of the NCLP, and fact that the subject of Labour is in the concurrent list and enforcement to a large extent depends on respective State Governments, an online portal is much needed. Components of PENCIL Portal are Child Tracking System, Complaint Corner, State Government, National Child Labour Project, convergence.

Government has taken several initiatives subsequent to the enactment of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016 to strengthen the governance of the legislative provisions. The National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme initiated in the in 1988 to rehabilitate working children by eliminating all forms of child labour through identification and withdrawal of all children in the Project Area from child labour, Preparing children withdrawn from work for mainstream education along with vocational training. NCLP has been revised expanded and aligned to the new legislative provisions. According to 2011 census, there has been substantial fall in child labour as compared to the data of Census 2001. In order to protect childhood and eradicate child labour, a holistic and multi-pronged approach is required. Launch of an online portal will play a significant role in implementation of laws, elimination of child labour from society.

Tags : Child labour Portal Launch

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