At 914, Haryana’s sex ratio at birth touches all-time high

Further improving its sex ratio at birth (SRB), Haryana has logged the highest ever ratio of 914 girls against 1,000 boys in 2017, an official release said on Saturday.

It was 900 in 2016 and 876 in 2015. While 17 districts achieved the SRB of 900 or more, no district was below 880 in 2017, it said.

Soon after the launch of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015, the state government launched a multi-pronged drive to check the skewed sex ratio and found that apart from qualified radiologists and doctors, there was a nexus in the state comprising quacks, untrained health workers, laboratory or x-ray technicians or operation theatre assistants.

About 550 FIRs were registered under the PC-PNDT/MTP Act against the offenders after successful raids deploying decoy operations, including 126 cross-border raids in adjoining five states, since, the release said.

Resultantly, an improvement was noticed that from 2011 when Haryana had the worst gender ratio among all states at 834:1000 (as per census 2011), the state witnessed an increase of 82 points in its sex ratio at birth during the past five years.

Out of the 5,09,290 children born in the state during the year (January 2017 to December 2017), there were 2,66,064 boys and 2,43,226 girls. While 17 of the total 22 districts achieved an SRB of 900 or more, no district was below 880 in 2017.

Panipat with SRB of 945 tops the list, followed by Yamunanagar with 943, close to 950 considered ideal from the perspective of public health. Mahendergarh, Rewari, Sonepat and Jhajjar districts having child sex ratio below 800 mark (as per 2011 census) showed improvement of 136, 91, 88, 96 points respectively, in their SRBs, the release added.