15 March 2009

PATNA: As many as 31 bonded child labourers of Bihar, who were rescued in New Delhi due to joint efforts of the state labour department and

Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), an NGO, on February 10 and February 17, reached Patna on Saturday. They were working in hotels, dhabas and other industries in New Delhi.

These labourers were released in course of two separate raids carried out by the state labour department in New Delhi under the Bonded Labour Abolition Act, 1976. They were given release certificates by state labour minister Awadhesh Narain Singh and Bihar State Child Labour Commission chairperson Ramdeo Prasad at Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA)-run rehabilitation centre, Mukti Ashram, in New Delhi.

The released labourers were received by joint labour commissioner Ramchandra Choudhary and BBA state coordinator Mokhtar-ul Haque. These children would return to their native places where they would be given Rs 20,000 each and be accorded priority in admission in schools run under National Child Labour Project and poverty alleviation schemes as well as in allotment of Indira Awas Yojana houses, according to a BBA release issued here on Saturday.

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