A child rescue initiative, Operation Nanhe Fariste, has been launched South Eastern Railway in all its four divisions, including Ranchi and Chakradharpur, that have their headquarters in Jharkhand.

“It was first introduced in South Western Railway in May 2017 that proved effective,” Prashant Yadav, Ranchi’s divisional security commissioner who has been assigned to oversee the campaign in the entire SE Railway jurisdiction, informed The Telegraph, explaining why they launched the phase II of the campaign.

“Many traffickers choose railway stations as easy escape routes,” he further said, adding dedicated child rescue teams comprising Railway Protection Force personnel have been formed to keep a watch on movements of such traffickers with children accompanying them.

Besides trafficked ones, the teams will also look for run-away children, orphans, lost children and child labourers and help them return to their guardians or take them to child welfare committees with help from NGOs active in the field.

Jharkhand, like many other states, is a vulnerable area and many children are reported to be trafficked from here every year.

“But the traffickers have also changed their modus operandi,” Yadav said, explaining they started moving with just two children or three instead of a large group and often claim them to be their close relatives.

In many cases, even the person accompanying such children may not have any criminal record and he or she agrees to accompany such children for a small sum, he added. The teams will closely monitor their movement till the destination station to verify their claim, Yadav further said, adding an effective network of such teams would bring in desired results.

They also planned to apply the change model suggested by former Harvard professor John Kotter for making the initiative effective.

Creating urgency, powerful coalition, vision for change, communicating the vision and remove obstacles are some of the steps Professor Kotter had suggested for making an initiative effective.

“We are trying to motivate our team members with those teachings and consolidate the resources to make the initiative a success,” Yadav further said.

Besides Jharkhand, authorities in Bengal and Odisha where SE Railway operates have so far been cooperative and helpful, he replied when asked about inter-agencies coordination that is a major factor in making such an initiative effective.