GULBARGA: The random survey conducted by the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) of Gulbarga district, in December 2011, seems to have many discrepancies. As per the survey, there were only 16 child labourers working in hazardous units and 24 children working in non-hazardous units in Gulbarga rural taluk, while this strength was 117 in a survey conducted in 2004-05.
The survey says there were 97 child labourers working in hazardous units and 17 in non-hazardous units in Chittapur taluk, where there are many stone mining units. The official figures of the education department of out-of-school children in Chittapur taluk in 2011 was 938. In the 2004-05 survey, the team identified 142 children working in hazardous units at the same taluk.
Though there are less stone mining units in Chincholi taluk compared to Chittapur, there were 584 children working in hazardous units and 121 children working in non-hazardous units in Chittapur taluk.
Often child labourers are used in stone mining units in large numbers.
In Sedam taluk, where the highest number of out-of-school children (98) were identified in 2011, the NCLP survey says there were 304 children working in hazardous units and 206 in non-hazardous units. The NCLP has no information on the number of children found working in hazardous units in the 2004-05 survey.
The survey found the highest number of child labourers working in hazardous units were in Chincholi taluk - 584, followed by Gulbarga (Urban) - 464, Sedam - 304, Afzalpur - 128, Aland - 111, Chittapur - 97, Jewargi - 78 and Gulbarga - 16.
The survey found 1782 child labourers working in hazardous units in December-2011. This number was 1488 in the in the year 2004-05 at the same unit.
As far as children working in non-hazardous units were concerned, Jewargi and Aland taluks have the highest number of child labourers (353 each), followed by Gulbarga City - 259, Sedam - 206, Afzalpur - 165, Chincholi - 121, Gulbarga (Rural)- 24 and Chittapur - 17.
In all, there were 1,498 child labourers working in non-hazardous units in Gulbarga district, which is high compared to 1,469 in non-hazardous units according to the 2004-05 survey. Deputy Commissioner Vishal R and National Child Labour Project Officer Chandrika Joshi said that action would be taken to rehabilitate them.