Child Labour Should be Stopped at All Cost: CM Stalin

Chennai: Emphasizing the need to give utmost importance to educating children, Chief Minister M K Stalin stressed on the elimination of child labour completely by urging the people to report to the authorities any instance of children being made to work as it was a prime responsibility of every citizen.

Addressing the participants of the 12,480 gramasabai (village council) meetings across the state through video conference on Saturday, Stalin listed out the various government schemes aimed at uplifting the rural areas and said that it was imperative on the part of the people to lift their villages to the next level and advised them how to go about it.

Among the many things that he mentioned as the social responsibility of the people were to ensure the proper implementation of the National Rural Employment Scheme, which is popularly known as the ‘100 days work.’ Everyone should monitor the scheme in their areas by finding out details of the scheme’s accounts in their villages, he said.

Besides, the people should know how many days of jobs were given to the beneficiaries and see to it that all records on the scheme were maintained in a transparent manner, he said, emphasizing on cleanliness by asking would one remain quiet if garbage piled up inside the house making it untidy and unclean.

Speaking about the importance of cleanliness, he said the use of plastics should be minimized and garbage should be dumped into the battery vehicles visiting their village to collect them after segregating the waste into bio-degradable and non-biodegradable categories.

Littering should be completely stopped and officials of the village administration should educate and guide the people to create awareness on the important things like segregation of waste and wastewater management, which might sound trivial but were significant, he said.

Medical department staff and village administrative staff should work in tandem to ensure the health of the people and hence there should be no negligence in keeping the villages clean and healthy, he said.

Briefing the villagers about global warming, Stalin said the ill-effects of climate change were already being felt with erratic and insufficient rains and told the people that saving water was important for their future.

Rainwater harvesting, which would improve the groundwater table was highly essential for preventing water shortage and providing long-term water security to the villages, he said.

Seeking the people's support to all the efforts of the government and the panchayat administration, he said emergency measures should be taken ahead of the onset of the Northeast monsoon to prevent damage to roads and essential services like water supply, electricity and drainage systems getting affected, he said.

Demanding transparency in the accounts and management of the panchayats, he said the people should know the income and expenses and hence information should be shared with everyone.

Assuring that the demands placed to the government through the gramasabai meetings would be met through different welfare schemes, he said villages alone could ensure the growth of the State.

Stalin also interacted with the participants of village councils in five panchayats and gave instructions to the officials to look into the demands placed before him by the people, sending across the message that ensuring growth with people’s participation was the key principle of his government.