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The Union Health and Family Welfare Minister, Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss has announced the setting up of a National Surveillance Cell consisting of retired police personnel, members of NGOs and civil society to conduct surprise checks on diagnostic clinics to ensure better implementation of the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PNDT Act). Addressing a National Conference on the PNDT Act organized by the National Commission for Women here today, the Minister said that the declining sex ratio was a result of deep-rooted problems in the community. He said we need to educate women and empower them. Pointing out that the economically better states like Punjab, Haryana and Delhi tended to show declining female sex ratio, he said there was a need to give more teeth to the penal provisions of the Act.
The Minister agreed with the earlier speakers like the Chairperson of the National Commission for Women, Dr. Girija Vyas in underlining the need for a more effective implementation of the PNDT Act.
Speaking earlier, the Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Smt. Panabaka Lakshmi pointed out that son preference has existed traditionally due to various social factors. She said, the problem of declining sex ratio is being addressed under the National Rural Health Mission. The Minister agreed that “law alone will not be able to solve the problem and each one in the civil society has to play a role to curb this practice”.
Setting the tone for the discussions in the Conference, the Chairperson of National Commission for Women, Dr. Girija Vyas said, there was a need to make the PNDT Act ‘a strong law’ and to ‘strengthen execution’. Pointing out that the well-off states showed the worst sex ratio, she called for strengthening the penal provisions. Her call to the Conference was to go to the villages and create awareness against female feticide. The Chairperson said that she will be providing certain suggestions for tightening the PNDT Act and the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (MTP).
The Conference has identified the following factors for declining the sex ratio:-
· Obsession to have a son.
· Discrimination against the girl child.
· Socio-economic and physical insecurity of women and stigma attached to being an unmarried woman.
· The evil of dowry prevalent in our society.
· Easily accessible and affordable procedures for sex determination during pregnancy.
· Unethical medical practices.
· Two-child norm of certain state governments.
Overall in India, the distribution of sex ratio has declined from 976 girls per 1000 boys in 1991 to 927 girls per 1000 boys in 2001. In states such as Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, Gujarat, this ratio has declined less than 900 girls per 1000 boys. 70 districts in 16 States and Union Territories have recorded a more than 50 point decline in the child sex ratio during the decade 1991-2001. The ratio stands at a mere 770 in Kurukshetra district of Haryana, 814 in Ahmedabad and 845 in the South West district of Delhi – even though these regions are amongst the most prosperous in the country.
EK/MK.
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