PNDT Act no bar for the unscrupulous!

LADKA YA Ladki? Ladka ! Many in UP adopt a business-minded approach when it comes to choosing their offsprings. They prefer to spend Rs 500 and save Rs 5 lakh as dowry.

Parents are unabashedly adopting amniocentesis technique for female foeticide.
In violation of Pre-natal Diagonstic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Amendment Act, 2002,  pre-birth sex determination and sex selective abortion is still continuing in ultrasound centres. According to a survey, around 1 lakh female foeticides are carried out each year in UP.

No doubt the female-male ratio in UP is shocking: 898/1000, where as the national figure stands at 927/1000. The sex ratio in the age group 0 to 6 years is 916/1000.

In its May 4, 2001, order, the Supreme Court had directed the Central and State governments to implement the Pre-natal Diagnostic Technique (PNDT) Act and take required measures to check female foeticide.

Though signboards with the slogan Ladka ya ladki? and ‘Spend Rs 500 to save Rs 5 lakh dowry’ have been removed from the ultrasound centres, qualified and unqualified doctors and even compounders are aborting the girl child.

Doctors equipped with mobile ultrasound machines are carrying out sex determination tests and abortions on trucks parked on highways. On the basis of anonymity, a senior officer commented that what was once a lawful practice in hygienic clinics had now slipped underground after the Act was brought into force in UP.

Though family welfare department officials have been directed to take action against the ultrasound centres and genetic counselling centres indulging in sex determination tests and female foeticide, hardly any action had been taken against such centres. When asked about action against the clinics violating the PNDT Act, an officer said they had identified four ultrasound centres and seven genetic counselling centres violating the PNDT Act in Meerut district alone.

Action was also initiated against three ultrasound centres in Saharanpur, three in Agra and one in Lucknow. But owners of these centres moved the court and the clinics were still functioning, the officials said.

Recently, a meeting of the supervisory board was held under the chairmanship of Family Welfare Minister Ahmed Hasan.

The members expressed concern over the delay in the constitution of the task force to keep a watch on the ultrasound centres and clinics. Principal Secretary PK Mishra said decoy customers should be sent to the clinics to expose their misdeeds.