Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986

The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 is the key law governing and preventing child labour in India. The Act was enacted to prohibit the engagement of children below the age of fourteen years in factories, mines and hazardous employments and to regulate their conditions of work in certain other employments.The Central Industrial Relation Machinery (CIRM) in the Ministry of Labour is responsible for enforcing this Act.

The main provisions of the Act are

• No child shall be required or permitted to work in any establishment in excess of such number of hours, as may be prescribed for such establishment or class of establishments.
• The period of work on each day shall be so fixed that no period shall exceed three hours and that no child shall work for more than three hours before he has had an interval for rest for at least one hour.
• No child shall be required or permitted to work overtime. No child shall be required or permitted to work in, any establishment on any day on which he has already been working in another establishment.
• Every child employed in an establishment shall be allowed in each week, a holiday of one whole day, which day shall be specified by the occupier in a notice permanently exhibited in a conspicuous place in the establishment and the day so specified shall not be altered by the occupier more than once in three months.
• Every occupier shall maintain, in respect of children employed or permitted to work in any establishment, a register to be available for inspection by an Inspector at all times during working hours or when work is being carried on in any such establishment showing:- (i) the name and date of birth of every child so employed or permitted to work; (ii) hours and periods of work of any such child and the intervals of rest to which he is entitled; (iii) the nature of work of any such child; and (iv) such other particulars as may be prescribed.
• The appropriate Government may, by notification in the official Gazette, make rules for the health and safety of the children employed or permitted to work in any establishment or class of establishments.
• Whoever employs any child or permits any child to work in contravention of the provisions of this Act shall be punishable with imprisonment or with fine or with both.