A Standing Group to evolve a mechanism for dealing with the problem of child labor was constituted under the Chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary in April 1998. A Central Monitoring Committee on child labor constituted by Government of India on 30.12.98 under the Chairman of Union Labor Secretary is responsible for the overall supervision, monitoring and evaluation of National Child Labor Projects in various States. The Center is engaged in the documentation, publication and creation of a data bank on child labor, research and training, media management and technical support services etc. and assists Union and State Governments, NGOs, policy makers and others. A Child Labor Cell has also been set up at the National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad with a similar mandate. Given the complex socio-economic dimensions of the problem, improvement in the living and working conditions of parents and in their economic conditions is crucial to the elimination of child labor.
Education is also an indispensable component for eliminating child labor.
The support of various Ministries has been enlisted with a view to adopting a multi-dimensional strategy to ensure that the benefit of development programs percolates to this group. As a result of their collective efforts, priority has been accorded to the parents and family members of working children for coverage under poverty eradication and employment generation programs. Several other programs have contributed substantially to the reduction of the number of working children in India. To fulfill the constitutional commitment to free and compulsory universal primary education, nearly 600,000 schools have been set up. A massive non-formal education program with the involvement of NGOs, with thrust on enrolment of girls has been launched for those children who cannot be enrolled in the formal system as also for school dropouts.