Coimbatore: About two years ago, 13-year-old Asha (name changed), a resident of Bargur in Anthiyur taluk of Erode district, was working as a farmhand at one of the sugarcane plantations in a nearby locality for a daily wage of Rs 200. Her family was in desperate need of an additional hand to boost their income.
It had taken a lot of time for members of Sudar, a non-governmental organization (NGO) running a special school for rescued child labourers under National Child Labour Project (NCLP) in the district to convince her parents to send her there for a monthly stipend of Rs 400.
They managed to get her parents’ nod and the girl was put in the special school.
But this month, the girl has gone back to work in a sugarcane plantation again because the school was shut during the lockdown and she lost her noon meal and the stipend.
Asha's is not a lone case. Across the state, this is the plight of rescued children. In Trichy where 467 children were rescued in 2019-20 alone, many have not received their stipend.
A project director of NCLP said all banks have been computerised and even a spelling mistake in their names will not allow the system to deliver the stipend money into their account. "Parents from rural areas tend to give wrong spellings which differ from Aadhar card which is used for opening bank accounts,’’ he said.
According to child rights activists, more than 50% of the rescued child labourers who were studying in NCLP’s special schools in the state have been forced to go back to work.
A Aloysius, director of Social Awareness and Voluntary Education (SAVE), an NGO that runs NCLP schools in Tirupur, said, “close to 300 students were studying in the special schools last year. Out of this, more than 75% are children of migrant workers. We don’t know where they have gone.”
SC Natraj, director of Sudar, said, that during the pandemic, the government should have concentrated towards the project and the children. "Instead, they just ignored the project and forgot about the children.”
A source from NCLP said they have received no communication other than asking them to reopen the schools based on directions of respective state government. “We have not monitored or tracked the students. We don’t know what they are doing or where they are. We don’t know what to do with the children who had completed two years in June. After two years, the students would be enrolled in a nearby government school and their name would be automatically removed from the project portal. We doubt that the students could cope up after such a long gap.”
He further said that the central government has not allotted funds for the project for the past one year and as a result, teachers and other staff were not paid from April 2019 in several districts including Coimbatore.
“Importantly, students have not received their stipend since April 2019. While the Centre makes it clear that the stipend amount would be disbursed only if their attendance are marked in PENCIL portal, they seem to ignore the practical and technical issues in the portal.
“The project is already facing resource and fund crises and the government’s ignorance is further weakening the project. Recovering from the situation would be difficult,” said R Vidyasagar, former child protection specialist of UNICEF.
(With inputs from Senthil Kumaran, R Gokul and Sukshma)