Sex ratio improves in 14 Haryana districts

Chandigarh, July 4 (UNI) As many as 14 districts of Haryana have shown improvement in the sex ratio as per the statistics available for the year 2005, despite its decline to 861 females per thousand males according to 2001 census as compared to 865 as per 1991 census.

Health Minister Mrs Kartar Devi here today said the districts where the female sex ratio has improved in 2005, as compared to that of census 2001, included Fatehabad-873 females per 1000 male (828 in census 2001), Faridabad 869 (850), Panipat 862 (809), Panckhula 856 (829), Sirsa 856 (817), Jind 856 (818), Hisar 834 (832), Kaithal-830 (791), Yamunanagar-830 (806), Rohtak-820 (799), Karnal-811 (809), Sonipat-790 (788), Ambala 790 (782), Kurukshetra 781 (771).

She said the districts which have not shown improvement in 2005 included Bhiwani, Gurgaon, Jhajjar, Mahendergarh and Rewari.

The sex ration was alarming in the age group of zero to six as it was 819 females to 1000 males as per the census of 2001. But the statistics of year 2005 revealed that the over all average has improved to 823 in this age group, Ms Devi added.

She said this increase in sex ratio was revealed in the data of registration of births recorded during the year 2005. Since January 2005 the births were being registered at the primary health centres.

There were a total of 487 centres for registration of births and deaths and out of these 411 were in rural areas and 76 in urban areas, she noted.

Ms Devi credited the increase in sex ratio to the number of steps taken by the state government to provide incentives to girls so as to enhance their socio-economic status and the growing awareness among the people.

Although the pre-natal Diagnostic Technique Act has been implemented strictly yet there was a need to change the mind set of the people to check the menace of female foeticide, Ms Devi said.

The drive to encourage the people to go in for institutional deliveries has also yielded encouraging results. The number of institutional deliveries has increased from 75,716 in 2001 to 1,29,135 in the year 2005, she added.

Ms Devi, who also holds the portfolio of Social Welfare, said the schemes being implemented for the welfare of women included ''Ladli-Social Security Pension Scheme'' and ''Indira Gandhi Priyadarshani Vivah Shagun Yojna''. Apart from this, she said, a number of other incentives were also being given to women as the government wanted to make them an equal partner in the developmental process.

She urged the people to avail the benefit of these schemes for their welfare.

UNI DP MA GC1731