A total of 11 child labourers have been rescued in Udupi district since 2015.
According to the information obtained under RTI from the labour officer in Udupi, five child labourers were rescued in 2015, one in 2018, three in 2019 and two in 2020. No child labourer has been rescued till February-end of 2021.
According to the available information, two among the 11 child labourers were directly handed over to their parents while nine were produced before Child Welfare Committee (CWC). As per the CWC order, the rescued children were handed over to their parents.
Information sought under RTI revealed that convictions have happened in all 11 cases. The Rehabilitation Society has conducted two meetings in Udupi between 2015 and 2021.
A total of Rs 24,91,902.61 Child Labour Corpus Fund is available in Udupi. The corpus fund of Rs 9,80,000 was collected from the accused employers of 49 child labourers rescued in Udupi district since the institution of the corpus fund. The government had released Rs 1 lakh for the fund in 2016-17.
The interest earned so far is Rs 14,91,902.61. In fact, the corpus fund was established for rescued child labourers in the name of Deputy Commissioners in every district as per the Supreme Court’s direction in the M C Mehta vs Government of Tamil Nadu case in 1996.
Deputy Commissioner of each district is the sole signatory of the corpus fund account and on the basis of directions from the Supreme Court, the state government had issued circular to use the funds for the education, welfare and rehabilitation of the rescued children.
The state government in the year 2016-17 had released Rs one lakh each for the corpus funds in 15 districts in Karnataka—Bidar, Chamarajanagar, Chikkamagaluru, Gadag, Hassan, Uttara Kannada, Dakshina Kannada, Shivamogga, Udupi, Ramanagara, Yadgiri, Chikkaballapura, Kodagu, Ballari and Bagalkote.
In its order, the government had directed to use the corpus funds for supplying food for the rescued children, to meet educational needs of the kids and reimbursement of petrol, diesel spent on the vehicle used for tracing the child labourers in case the labour department’s vehicle was not available.