Skewed sex ratio: No data, so no action

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, April 6

Seriousness of the state government to counter the skewed sex ratio in the bordering areas appears to be half-baked as the officials concerned have little information available on panchayats lagging behind in this area.

The panchayat secretaries are supposed to send monthly information pertaining to sex ratio in their area to the block development offices (BDO) which is then forwarded to the office of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO). This information is sent on the basis of a set format like number of males and females and the sex ratio, the ratio of total males to females in a population, is not worked out. Thus, no information pertaining to panchayats having skewed ratio is available in the field and therefore little is being done to check this adverse trend in the bordering areas, as was evident after talking to various officers.

Nalagarh BDO Rajinder Singh Jaswal said the information furnished by the panchayat secretaries was generally based on a format prescribed for the same and was regularly forwarded to the CMO, where it was compiled to work out the actual sex ratio.

Despite contacting other offices like the Child Development Project Officer, no specific information was available. Figures obtained from the office of Solan CMO, however, revealed that out of five blocks in Solan district, Chandi block had the most skewed ratio of 936 followed by Nalagarh 967, Solan 972, Arki 993 and Dharampur at 996.

The sex ratio of Solan district as a whole was 975, which was an improvement over the figure quoted earlier, claimed Dr Udit, District Medical Health Officer. This information was based on the latest headcount in all the blocks, he said.

Interestingly, the method adopted to work out sex ratio was also fraught with errors. While the office of the CMO relied on figures sent by the respective Block Medical Officers, the figures provided by the female health workers, based on each sub-centre, often varied, confided an official of the Health Department.

With Chandi and Nalagarh blocks being the bordering areas in the district, people appear to be having access to sex determination tests in various private clinics.