The Law Ministry is understood to have given its nod for bringing an amendment to a child labour act prohibiting engaging children below the age of 18 years in certain hazardous occupations.

Sources in the Labour and Employment Ministry said the necessary amendment in the Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act, 1986 was long felt so as to bring child labour related issues in conformity with international standards.

At present, as per the Act, children below the age of 14 could not be engaged in hazardous occupations.

The issue was discussed at the meeting of the Committee on Conventions under the Labour and Employment Ministry on Tuesday.

The issue came up in the context of a discussion on the prospects of ratification of an ILO convention for elimination of the worst forms of child labour.

India is among a few countries which is yet to ratify convention No 182 of ILO as it has maintained that it needs to take all stakeholders on board before taking a decision on it.

Sources said while the Law Ministry has already given its consent to the amendment, no time frame has been fixed to carry out the amendment.

The meeting which was chaired by Labour and Employment Secretary Prabhat Chaturvedi was attended by representatives of all central employers’ organisations, trade unions, state governments and International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Chaturvedi informed the committee about the adoption of ILO recommendation relating to HIV/AIDS by International Labour Conference in June, 2010 in Geneva.