Saturday, August 20 2005 17:13 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Centre today (Aug 20, 2005) unveiled an ambitious National Plan of Action for Children, which regards the child as an asset and a person with human rights and focuses among other things on total abolition of child labour and ensuring their choice in decisions affecting their lives.

No plan can actually succeed unless it captures the spirit of service and commitment", said Arjun Singh, Union Human Resources Department (HRD) Minister, releasing the Action Plan 2005, which commits itself to ensure rights of all children upto the age of 18 years.

Singh said many plans flounder as they get caught up in bureaucratic mould and as their success was rated on the basis of the money spent. "Money is important but it cannot decide how much a plan has succeeded", he said.

With Child Survival, Child Development, Child Protection and Child Participation as its four pillars, the guiding principles of the Plan are to regard the child as an asset and a person with human rights and to address issues of discrimination emanating from biases of gender, class, caste, race, religion and legal status in order to ensure equality. The 12 key areas identified under the Plan include reducing infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate and malnutrition, achieving 100 per cent civil registration of births, universalitation of early childhood care and development of quality education for all children including 100 per cent access and retention in schools, including pre-schools. Complete abolition of child labour with the aim of progressively eliminating all forms of economic exploitation and ensuring child participation and choice in matters and decisions affecting their lives are the other key areas.