DC Convenes Meeting to Tackle Child Labour, only 20 of 178 Reps Turn up
 
Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje
Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (PS)
 
Mangalore, Jul 27: In a bid to tackle the problem of child labour in the city, deputy commisioner Dr Channappa Gowda called a meeting of all apartment owners at his office on Tuesday July 26. However, the response to the meeting was pathetic, with only about 20 out of the 178 representatives of apartment owners' association bothering to attend, despite being notified well in advance.

The meeting was jointly convened by the district administration and DK district child labour project society to discuss the serious issue of child labour in the city and take measures to curb it as well, in the wake of a number of cases being reported in city.

The representatives of the apartment owners’ association were told that if a case of child labour is reported from any of the apartments, the owner/ occupier will be held responsible and may have to face severe consequences like a fine of Rs 20,000 and/or one year imprisonment.

The DC told the representatives that in case their tenants employeed a labourer under the age of 14 years, they should inform the assistant commissioner of labour department Venkatesh Shindhihatti. He assured that the name of the complainant will be kept secret and action will be taken against the tenants. The informer were asked to call the toll free number 1098 (labour department).
 
Out of the 178 who were issued notices to attend the meeting, only 20 were present. Moreover, when an official informed that in the last two years six cases of child labour had been reported in the city, one representative of the apartment owners’ association termed it as ‘negligible’, which did not go down well with the officers including the DC.

The DC said that such cases could not be tolerated any longer and instructed the owners to keep a copy of the birth certificates of the labourers employed in their respective apartments.
 
Taking a deviation from the main issue, the apartment owners were asked to co-operate with the new system of solid waste management in Mangalore city corporation limit.
 
Zilla panchayath president K T Shailaja Bhat, assistant commissioner of labour department Venkatesh Sindhihatti, MCC commissioner Dr K N Vijayprakash, additional SP Prabhakar among others were present.