Children - Terre des Hommes

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Nashik district: Key facts
Total population: 4,993,796 (Census 2001)
Population (0–14 years): 1,737,036 (Census 2001)
Literacy rate:
Total 74.36 per cent
Male 83.65 per cent
Female 64.35 per cent (Census 2001)
Percentage of out-of-school children (6–14 years): 1.9 per cent (ASER 2008)
Percentage of children enrolled in AWC or pre-school (3–4 years): 93.9 per cent (ASER 2008)
Number of child labour (5–14 years): 55,371 (Census 2001)
Under five mortality rate (ranking):
11,758 between 5 and 19 years working in the mining sector
in Maharashtra in 2001. However, given that the majority of
the mining and quarrying in the state is in the unorganised
sector, these figures could just be a bubble from the actual
troubled waters.
The Pashan Children: A ‘Stone’
Deaf Government Hammers Their
Childhood Away
Thirteen year old Santosh (name changed) works
in a stone quarry in Moshi village of Pune district.
He had to migrate with his family from Nashik
and has been working in the quarry for more than
a year now. He works from early morning till late
in the evening breaking stones and loading them
into trucks. He has four siblings one of whom is
physically handicapped. He earns Rs.70–90 per
Child worker in stone quarry in Pune (Photo September 2009)
87 out of 593 districts surveyed
(Jansankhya Sthirata Kosh)
day which is desperately needed to keep the family
from starvation. When interviewed he said “I
always wanted to study but our family is not in
a position to send us to school and now it is too
late for me to dream about it. I want to work hard
so that I can use my wages to send my younger
brothers to school”.
Source: Interview in Moshi quarry, Pune, September 2009
As India is leap frogging into a frenzied development
mode of fast track infrastructure to attract Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI) and private markets, one of the thrust
areas is expansion of roads, national highways, airports,
railways, ports and urban infrastructure for industries and
for the fast growing urban populations. For example, the
planned expansion of national highways of Government of
India is an ambitious investment of Rs.2,35,430 crore for
the National Highways Development Project. It is proposed
that 12,109 km of four-laning, 20,000 kms of two-laning,
6,500 km of six-laning, 1,000 km of expressways, and
over 16,600 crores of flyovers, ring roads, etc are planned
under the Eleventh Five Year Plan. Further, in order to
meet the insatiable energy requirements of the next decade,
construction of large dams and power projects is another
major area of investment underway.
For all these grandiose plans of India’s development, the price
paid by the country is, a skyrocketing number of quarries
being dug up all over the country, with a high population
of migrant and unorganised labour serviced by women and
children. Ironically, the inclusive growth targets of India, to
match the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are also
in the areas of 26 monitorable targets like: (i) income and