Female ratio in Jammu alarming: Dr Sabu

Jammu, Feb 20 (UNI) According to a survey, female foeticide is rising at an alarming rate in Jammu and Kashmir with one female child out of every seven killed in different districts of Jammu.

Attending a workshop organised at Government Medical college, Jammu, here yesterday, Dr Sabu George of the Centre for Women's Development Studies (CWDS) said, according to the survey the sex ratio in the district of Jammu was 828 girls to 1000 boys (combining urban-rural figures) and 796 girls in urban and 847 girls to 1000 boys in the rural areas of Kathua district.

''The situation is getting worsen here and the latest figures are alarming,'' Dr George said, adding that machines being used in Kathua district to detect the sex of a child are coming from Punjab.

He also claimed that besides Kathua and Jammu districts, the situation is also alarming in Udhampur and Rajouri districts.

He further asserted, ''the Strictly Implementing Pre-Natal Detection Test (PNDT) Act against the offenders, certainly will have an effect.'' However, the two-day media workshop on implementation of PNDT Act, organised under National Rural Health Mission, disclosed that as per J&K sex ratio survey conducted by Directorate of Economics and Statistics, J&K government in 2006, the child sex ratio was 820 and 840 girls to 1000 boys in Jammu and Kathua districts.

UNI VBH PY AS1620