At least 359 students from nine schools under the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) have been affected due to temporary closure for the past one-month owing to shortage of funds.

Deputy Commissioner of Labour K N Bhatt said that a draft amounting Rs 4.8 lakh was misplaced which led to the delay in payment of salaries to at least 85 teachers. This finally led to the closure of the schools, he said.

“The draft was misplaced which led to the delays. We are sending our officials to check the matter with the Ministry of Labour, on September 14,” said Bhatt, who oversees the implementation of NCLP in 115 special schools meant for children between the age group of nine and 14 years.

He added, “We understand that there was a delay, but within next week the funds should be cleared.”

Meanwhile, several officials from the Department of Employment and Labour, Gujarat government, pointed out to the irregular fund disbursal from the Ministry of Labour.

Panchmahals and Dahod districts were the worst affected as the NGOs which were responsible for the maintenance of the schools, backed out due to shortage of funds. According to NCLP officials, they directly make the finds available to the NGOs for running the schools.

Panchmahals Collector and Chairman of the District Committee for Implementation of NCLP, Milind Torwane, said the draft that was actually supposed to be dated September 4, 2009, bore a typographical error that showed the year as 2008.

“There was a draft of Rs 4.8 lakh dated September 4, 2008 instead of 2009, which we had to send back as we could not encash it. Our officials from the administration will visit the Ministry of Labour, although we have notified them about the crisis of funds since December 2008,” he added.

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