Beti Bachao: Ray of hope in worst offender Jhajjar

CHANDIGARH: Haryana's Jhajjar district, which was at the bottom in the child sex ratio in the country during the 2001 census, has witnessed significant improvement. The state government on Saturday disclosed that the sex ratio at birth has reached 901 girls per 1,000 boys in December 2014 vis-à-vis 774:1,000 in 2001 census.
Additional principal secretary to the CM, Rakesh Gupta, claimed in a high-level meeting that the child sex ratio had improved because of strict implementation of PNDT Act.Jhajjar's civil surgeon Dr Ramesh Dhankar told TOI that even in January 2014, the sex ratio at birth was just 769 in the district. Joint teams conducted raids at ultrasound centres in January and February after receiving complaints about sex determination at such centres in the district.
"We also conducted raid at an ultrasound centre in Bahadurgarh which was being run by a quack. During the investigation, we came to know about 150 MTPs (medical termination of pregnancy) had been conducted at the centre," the civil surgeon added.
"During the police remand, the woman running the centre had confessed that she was involved in sex determination. She had us told about some more similar ultrasound centres at Bahadurgarh and Jhajjar. We had got lodged six FIRs after sealing ultrasound machines," he added.
Dr Dhankar said that after this action, the flow of complaints against ultrasound centres reduced drastically. According to him, the child sex ratio started improving after six months of the raids at these ultrasound centres.