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The Centre has asked the states to continuously monitor the sex ratio at birth so that the practice of prenatal sex determination and sex related abortions could be checked effectively. Inaugurating the Annual National Conference of the Chief Registrars of Births & Deaths here today, the Home Minister, Shri Shivraj Patil drew attention to the deteriorating sex ratio as revealed by the 2001 Census and said that the trend is disturbing. From 945 girls per 1000 boys in the age group 0-6 in 1991, the child sex ratio declined to 927 girls per 1000 boys in the 2001 census. 31 States and Union Territories covering 477 districts registered a decline in the child sex ratio in the 2001 census. The number of districts where the child sex ratio is below 900 increased from 69 in 1991 to 118 in 2001. Shri Patil said that this is reflective of the practice of female foeticide and even infanticide. The Home Minister expressed concern that even after 30 years of implementation of the Registration of Births & Deaths Act, 1969 under which registration of both births and deaths is compulsory, about half of these vital events are not being registered. He said that the States should preferably hand over the work of registration of births and deaths to Panchayats. He observed that when the country is poised to become one of the major economic powers in the world, it could ill-afford to have a system of vital statistics that did not capture cent percent births and deaths. Shri Patil stressed the need to make use of IT for the purpose of improving birth and death registration and assured all support to the states in this effort.
Earlier, in his presentation on the status of birth and death registration, the Registrar General of India, Shri D.K. Sikri indicated that about 57% of the births and 51% of the deaths only were being registered in the country. He pointed out that issuing a birth certificate free of charge on registration of the birth was mandatory under the law but was not taking place in many parts of the country. The National Campaign on Issue of Birth Certificates launched by the President of India on 14th November 2003 has resulted in more than 3.04 crore birth certificates being issued during one year. The Government of India and UNICEF would be supporting the State governments for improving the registration system so that the target of 100% registration by 2010 set by the National Population Policy 2000 could be achieved.
The Conference would review the working of the Civil Registration System in the States to find out ways and means to improve the levels of registration of births and deaths so that the target of 100% registration could be achieved within the stipulated time.
The Conference would discuss monitoring of sex ratio at birth based on registration records; ensuring the issue of birth/death certificates free of charge on registration within 21 days; standardization of birth/death certificate formats so that they have a similar design across the country; computerization of Civil Registration System so as to improve citizen services; implementation of Medical Certification of Causes of Death so as to collect high quality data on the underlying causes of death; and issues relating to updating of the Population Register through birth and death registers in the areas where pilot project on Multipurpose National Identity Card is being implemented.
The Chief Registrars of Births & Deaths of various States, Principal Secretaries/Secretaries in charge of the Civil Registration System in some States, representatives of UNICEF and officials of the Office of the Registrar General, India and Directorates of Census Operations are attending the two day conference.
OK/ 270105 - RGI
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