Annual Report 2008-2009 Apart from monitoring, supervision and control over the functioning of nearly 300 field officers and smooth management of the office, she/he is the member convener of a number of statutory Committees like the State Minimum Wages Advisory Board, State Contract Labour Advisory Board and State Child Labour Advisory Board and non-statutory bodies like the State Labour Advisory Board, and the meetings of these bodies take place at prescribed intervals. Apart from convening their meetings, she/he has to record the gist of decisions taken, get them approved by the Chairperson and initiate follow-up action. In addition, she/he has to undertake field visits to oversee the functioning of a large number of inspecting officials. In such a situation it may be desirable if the Directorate of Factories and its functioning is segregated from the overall control of the Labour Commissioner. This will provide the much needed respite to the Labour Commissioner. Concurrently the office of the Labour Commissioner also needs to be strengthened in terms of : (a) administrative infrastructure; (b) physical and communication infrastructure; and (c) academic infrastructure. All vacant posts at the headquarters and in the field need to be filled up without further delay. It would be ideal if e-connectivity is established between the office of the Labour Commissioner and all other field offices. 7.27 In order to eradicate the problem of child labour, the State is implementing the National Child Labour Programme in 37 districts and INDUS Child Labour Project in 5 districts. Through these schools, services like free text books and note books; mid-day meal at the rate of Rs.5/- per day; vocational training skills; stipend at the rate of Rs. 100/- per month and mainstreaming of children to nearby senior school on completion of Class V are being delivered. During the course of the visit to the State of Uttar Pradesh, the Transition Education Centres (TECs) being run under the INDUS Child Labour Project at Moti Nagar, Gajju Purwa, Shorea Godown in Kanpur District were also visited by the Special Rapporteur. These TECs were being managed by three different non-governmental organizations, namely, Parivartan Sewa Sansthan, Zilla Bal Kalyan Samiti and Saraswati Shiksha Samiti. Despite a few constraints, the attendance and participation of children in all the TECs was found to be praiseworthy. All the children were in the age group of 9-13 and had undergone some kind of schooling but dropped out at some stage to work were able to read, write and do arithmetic. The main objective of TEC is to sharpen the literacy and numeracy skills of the enrolled children whereby after reaching an equivalence of Class V they are facilitated to enter mainstream education. 7.28 Visits were also made to two Lead Schools in Kanpur District being managed or aided by the Department of Basic Education, Government of Uttar Pradesh for the purposes of mainstreaming children from TECs into the formal education system. The school located in Moti Nagar was wholly managed by the State Government itself and the other located in Jajmau by an NGO named Bal Niketan. The latter was being aided by the State Government as well. The attendance in the former school was found to be far from satisfactory. Out of the total strength of 419 children from Class I to Class V, only 130 were present on the day of the visit. Among them, a number of children had stunted growth on account of severe malnutrition. These children were unable to read the blackboard. This Lead School though located in the 101