The Hindu : National : Nod for Project INDUS

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 15, 2004

National

National

Nod for Project INDUS

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI, OCT. 14. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Wednesday cleared the implementation of an Indo-U.S joint collaboration project for the elimination of child labour.

Project INDUS has been prepared by the Labour and Employment Ministry and the U.S. Department of Labour in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation's International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (ILO-IPEC) for the prevention and elimination of child labour in identified hazardous sectors.

The project will be implemented in 20 identified districts in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Delhi by the Labour Ministry and the Department of Elementary Education and Literacy under the Human Resource Development Ministry.

The Labour Ministry will have the option of extending the project to more districts by utilising the overall savings. The project will be treated as an additional component of the National Child Labour Project scheme of the Ministry and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan of the Human Resource Development Ministry.

The Labour Ministry will incur an expenditure of Rs. 59 crores and the U.S Department of Education will give Rs. 31.5 crores for it from its on-going scheme of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. This will be matched by an equal contribution from the ILO. The Labour Ministry's contribution will be in addition to the approved outlay of Rs. 602 crores for the National Child Labour Programme scheme.

Leprosy elimination

The CCEA also extended the Second National Leprosy Elimination Project for nine months from April 1 to December 31. This will ensure utilisation of the available funds for continuity of programme and accelerating the pace of achieving elimination of leprosy by 2005.

During the extended period, no changes in project components or the scope of activities are being contemplated. The term of the second project was three years from April 2001 to March 2004 at the cost of Rs. 249.80 crores. At the close of the project, an amount of Rs. 38 crores is lying unspent resulting this extension.

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