When students do the work of peons

BHUJ, Aug 22: Child labour may be illegal in the country but the ban doesn’t seem to be applicable in the border district of Kutch. Thousands of pupils in primary schools here have to do a lot more than study they do the work of peons such as cleaning classrooms and courtyards, fetching drinking water and attending to other miscellaneous work.

There are currently 1,98,328 students — 1,13,840 boys and 84,488 girls — enrolled in the district’s 1,440 schools in 10 talukas.

As district panchayat president Gopal Bhuva said: “This is true. I have myself noticed it at several places, but then there is no alternative except to involve students in shram yagna’ as the State Government is not allowing schools to fill up vacancies of peons.”