"Engaging child labour should be included in poll affidavit"

To check the menace of child labour, Assam Labour Minister Pallab Lochan Das today suggested in the Assembly that affidavits of candidates in elections should mention whether he or she had employed any child labour.

Das also announced that his Labour and Employment Department will make it mandatory for contractors to furnish an undertaking before any work in the department that no child labour would be engaged.

"Can we give an undertaking in our poll affidavits that there is no child labour in our homes? I think we all can give that. If we make it a provision that all officials, contractors, businessmen give such undertakings, the problem of child labour can be minimised," Das said.

He said most of child labour are engaged in educated and affluent families as domestic help.

All the MLAs and the officials can declare that there is no child labour at their homes and that way the practice of child labour could be ended, the minister said.

He also appealed to various residential societies to declare that no child labour is engaged in their flats.

Raising the issue in the House, BJP MLA Gurujyoti Das claimed that 99,511 child labours were there in the state as per 2011 census.