Children in the schools will also be taught about making greeting cards and paper mache gift items.

The new initiative, supported by the department of labour and the department of women and child development, will be launched in the mid January and will cover all 325 NCLP schools in the state. At present, NCLP schools in eastern UP districts like Varanasi, Bhadohi, Mirzapur, Pratapgarh and Gorakhpur are residential, while those in districts like Sitapur, Bareilly, Moradabad and Lucknow are non-residential ones.

“So far, these schools were operating as a day boarding, where the children went home after 5 pm. We have often seen that some of these children continued to work in restaurants and other such joints after they returned from school,” said R Ram, Additional Labour Commission (Lucknow zone).

“Hence the purpose of rescuing these children and bringing them to the schools was not served. By making all the NCLP schools residential, we will be able to ensure that they are not working,” said R Ram, Additional Labour Commission (Lucknow zone). He added that with the schools becoming residential, the drop-out rate will decrease. “It’s difficult to keep a track of children after holidays as some of them don’t return,” he said.