BJP govt schemes come a cropper: Kiran Choudhry

Tribune News Service

Bhiwani, August 2

Kiran Choudhry, Leader of the Haryana Congress Legislature Party, has said that policies and programmes pursued by the Manohar Lal Khattar-led Haryana Government are coming a cropper. Be it Beti Bachao-Beti padhao, its campaign to check mother-infant deaths or crime against women, statistics prove that the situation has deteriorated, not improved.

The former Excise and Taxation Minister said that claims to the contrary to curb female foeticide under the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign notwithstanding, the sex ratio at birth (SRB) in Haryana as well as in most districts had declined. The bias against the girl child remained to be busted.

The data on SRB supplied by the civil registration system for June, 2014, and June, 2015, shows a decline, not improvement, in at least six districts where the number of girls born against boys has gone down. Against the SRB target of 950 set by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, it has registered a decrease from 874 in 2014 to 869 this year.

Coming to the districts, the number of girls against boys in Sirsa has declined from 890 for every 1,000 boys up to June, 2014, to 877 in June, 2015. In Rohtak, it came down from 889 to 852; Faridabad (890 to 848), Jind (902 to 862), Kurukshstra (888 to 862), Ambala (902 to 888), Gurgaon (839 to 812), Kaithal (918 to 893), Karnal (896 to 894), Panipat (914 to 901). Against this, the improvement registered by some districts was only marginal, she said.

On infant deaths, Choudhry said there were 3,307 infant deaths in the state but only 728 were mentioned in the reports submitted by the district authorities to the state government and the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. And, of 145 maternal deaths, just 21 were reported on the NHM portal Health Management Information System (HMIS).

On crime against women, Haryana has earned the dubious distinction of ranking third in the country according to the data released by the National Commission for Women. The NCW received 1,720 complaints, the third highest number of cases of crime against women from Haryana in 2014-15. The state trails UP with 19,385 complaints and Delhi with 3,618 cases registered by the NCW in 2014-15. A majority of the 433 complaints from Haryana were of police apathy where the victims failed to get their complaints registered, the former minister said.