Prevalence of child labour in India even after amendments were made to child prohibition laws to make those more stringent is extremely worrying. It is a collective failure of the society, departments concerned and law enforcement agencies which has allowed unscrupulous elements to continue employing child labours with impunity. The government amended the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 in 2016 and enacted a new law- The Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986. The amended law provides for complete prohibition of work or employment of children below 14 years in any occupation and process and adolescents in the age group of 14 to 18 years in hazardous occupations and processes. It made the violation of act a cognizable offence and provides for stricter punishment for employers of child labours. Official data shows that around 14 lakh child labourers have been rescued or withdrawn from work, rehabilitated and mainstreamed under the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme since inception of the Scheme in 1988. The figure is a tip of the iceberg and indicates the magnitude of child labour problem in the country. One effective way of ending child labour is ensuring where the child should be in childhood- in schools to be educated. Under the Samagra Shiksha scheme of Ministry of Education, now aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, implemented by its Department of School Education & Literacy, all States and UTs are requested to conduct household survey annually for the purpose of identification of dropout and the Out of School Children (OoSC). Scores of children continue to roam around during school hours as rag pickers or working in roadside eateries or in construction sites, which point towards the failure to make effective use of survey data to identify and rescue child labours. Ministry of Education data shows that around 9.3 lakh children at elementary level who include 5.02 lakh boys and 4.27 lakh girls are not enrolled in schools with Uttar Pradesh accounting for the highest number 3.96 lakh such OoSC. Unless these children belonging to marginalized households are mainstreamed into formal schooling, they will remain vulnerable to be exploited as child labours. Prosecution and conviction of violators have deterrent effect but hard reality is that only about 25% cases led to conviction. District Nodal Officer and Task Force at district level under chairpersonship of District Magistrate mandated to ensure that the provisions of the Act are properly enforced. Sheer number of violation compared to limited staff strength of task force make enforcing the act a challenging task without pro-active cooperation from every other stakeholder in the society- school teacher, village head, family members, NGO and child right activists and organizations. Participation of these stakeholders in prevention of child labour can be ensured only by raising their awareness level about legal provisions available against engagement of child workers and of adolescents in hazardous work. Protection of the child from any kind exploitation must be shouldered by the family, relatives, neighbours and the society at large so that everyone keeps watchful eye against employers of child labours enticing them to work by exploiting poverty and other financial hardship of marginalised households. Information on government schemes for inclusive growth aimed at raising the income level of households living below the poverty line must reach every single poverty-stricken household. It is very unfortunate that when many government schools across the country have been merged for want of adequate students, lakhs of children continue be OcSC even though education is provided free of cost in all government schools and recognized private schools are required to reserve 25% entry level seats for children belonging to disadvantaged and economically weaker families. Permanent solution, however, lies in economic growth so that income level of these families increase education becomes affordable and accessible for them. Prevention of child labour, therefore, cannot be delinked from various welfare measures and schemes such as doubling income of farm household, Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, Rastriya Swastha Bima Yojana of providing health insurance coverage to BPL families, etc. The Ministry of Labour & Employment has constituted an Inter Ministerial Committee under the chairpersonship of Secretary (Labour & Employment) for coordinating efforts across ministries and sectors for prevention of child labour. A whole-of-government approach under this coordination mechanism for ameliorating the condition of economically weaker and socio-economically disadvantaged families will create the desired ecosystem where the child will no longer be required to work to augment income of the household and remain out of school. A holistic approach is needed to ensure that government welfare schemes targeting poverty-stricken households do not end in creating mere beneficiaries who would forever remain dependent on such schemes but support them to stand on their own. Freedom of the child from forced labour is not possible without economic freedom of their households.