Carrying out a sudden drive, district administration today rescued over 50 children who were engaged in child labour or were made to beg on the streets. The drive was carried out as part of “Operation Samvedna” on the major junctions in the city including Surajpole, Udiapole, Chetak Circle and Delhi Gate. District Collector Rohit Gupta, SP Rajendra Goyal, Addn District Collector(City) O.P. Bunkar and other senior district administration officials were present on the occasion.

Rohit Gupta said that a lot of counselling has been happening over past quite some time as part of Operation Samvedna to make the city free of child labour and begging. However, habitual drug and alcohol addicts still seem to use the kids for begging and a lot of restaurants and hotels use them for labour. He warned that strict action will now be initiated against such people.

4 groups carried out the operation simultaneously at the four junctions. The kids who were rescued have been sent to rehabilitation centre.

A meeting was held at 9 am in the human trafficking office at Udiapole today and teams were formed therein. The rescue operation was carried out simultaneously at 10 am at the junctions. Various hotel and restaurant operators tried to hide the children on seeing the team but the team got better of most of them and managed a rescue of over 50 kids.

Flex were also released to increase awareness amongst the normal masses to stop promoting begging.

Quite a few NGOs and volunteers also participated in the operation.