Rewari women delivering boy after girl under govt scanner

Ravinder Saini

Tribune News Service

Rewari, June 7

Alarmed at a depressing ratio of 776 females against 1,000 males in Rewari, the district health authorities have decided to collect information about women delivering a male child after their first female child.

Rewari is the only district in Haryana to have recorded ratio less than 800 females, suggest official statistics compiled by the state health authorities for the first four months of this year. Neighbouring Mahendragarh is placed second with a ratio 819 females. The move aims at identifying private nursing homes/ultrasound centres indulging in illegal trade of prenatal sex determination test and female foeticide to initiate a stern action against them.

In the first phase, the authorities have selected 20 villages where gender ratio of less than 500 females has been recorded. Auxiliary nurse midwives (ANM), accredited social health activists (ASHA) and anganwari workers have been engaged for the job. Civil Surgeon Dr Aaditya Swaroop Gupta said: “The study points towards prevalence of female foeticide.

Couples having a female child seem to be using prenatal sex determination test at the time of their second child. Hence, we have decided to collect information about such cases.” Health workers will meet women, their kin and neighbours to get information about the hospitals from where they had got their ultrasound test and delivery done at the time of the birth of their second child, he said.

“The unusual gap between first female and second male child also indicates something suspect, hence special attention will be laid on such cases to find out the reason behind the abnormal gap,” said the Civil Surgeon.

Gupta maintained the information will also help identify commission agents who take such people to hospitals that conduct sex determination tests illegally. 

Official statistics compiled on the basis of the Civil Registration System (CRS) from January to April suggest 5,459 children — 3,074 males and 2,385 females — were born in the district. Likewise, 4,501 children, comprising 2,475 males and 2,026 females, were born in Mahendragarh.

Against the state average of 878 females per 1,000 males, Mewat tops the gender ratio (946 females), followed by Panchkula (925), Kaithal (914) and Panipat (913). Of the 1,63,672 children born across the state, 76,505 were females, the record says.