New Delhi, April 19: In view of the sharp decline in child sex ratio as revealed by the Census 2011, the Government has decided to pull up the problem States where girl child is fast disappearing.
Census 2011 results show that among children up to the age of six, the number of girls per 1,000 boys has reduced to 914, a drop from 927 in 2001. As per the figures, this is lowest since the country’s independence in 1947.
To begin with, the Union Health Ministry will take up the matter with the 10 States (see box) where child sex ratio 0-6 years is dismal i.e. below 900. What has worried the Government is that even though majority of these States have reported gains in literacy rate and are economically sound, the preference for male child over the girl continues.
To deliberate on various issues such as faulty ultrasound machines, low conviction rate against doctors conducting sex determination tests and insufficient women and child development schemes causing decline in child sex ratio, the Ministry will hold a day-long meeting with these 10 States on Wednesday ensuring to plug loopholes.
Social activist Ranjana Kumari, however, dismissed the Ministry’s move to hold the meeting with the States as an eye-wash.
She said, “The Union Government had never been serious to the issue despite glaring example of female foeticide being reported from across the country in all these years. We had written several letters to the Health Minister to hold review meetings but our request fell on deaf ears.”
For instance, in past four years it never held a single meeting of the Central Supervisory Board under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) Act. Not only this, a 24-hour toll free number 1800110500 set up in 2008 to record complaints against doctors conducting sex determination tests and foeticide cases is now almost dead.
Ranjana Kumari said time has come that the trend is taken as an emergency call and the PNDT Act is seriously implemented while defaulters particularly doctors conducting the sex determination are prosecuted.
–Agencies-