Mrunal Manmay Dash

Bhubaneswar: Asserting stern action against offenders, Labour Commissioner Niranjan Sahoo today said that the department has set a target to completely eradicate child labour from Odisha by 2025.

On World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse today, the State Labour Department in collaboration with PECUC (People’s Cultural Centre), took out a walkathon from Ram Mandir to Master Canteen square in Bhubaneswar to create awareness on this malaise and launched a signature campaign.

Speaking to OTV during the rally, Sahoo said, “Awareness and stern action against offenders are needed to effectively eradicate this social evil. We have a target of completely eradicating child labour and violence against children in the State by 2025.”

On Odisha government not having a complete picture of how many children are getting forced to do physical labour and subjected to harassment and violence in the State, Anuradha from PECUC said, “Though we don’t have a collaborative data, we take information from education department and other NGOs. We visit villages, carry out inspection and declare them child labour free only after making sure that the social evil doesn’t exist in the area.”

Government officials, celebrities, youths and students of several schools took part in the rally today.

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