Pune: The Health Department of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has failed to act against the alarming drop in sex ratio from 934 girls to 909 girls per 1,000 boys under its jurisdiction.
Speaking on the occasion of ‘International Girl Child Day’, celebrated worldwide on October 11, sources at the health department attributed the drop in number to the lack of communication between officials looking over the implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDT) and Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (MTP).
As a result, the health department has taken up rigorous initiatives in checking sonography machines to avoid female foeticide under the PCPNDT Act. There has been no case registered under the MTP act for the past one year, according to the data furnished by the department.
The six monthly sex ratio released by the State government showed that the city’s performance in ensuring a healthy sex ratio is deplorable, which points towards an increase in sex-selective abortions.
Speaking to Sakal Times on the occasion of ‘International Girl Child Day’, Dr Vaishali Jadhav, in-charge of PMC’s PCPNDT cell, said that in 2014, the department had taken action against six doctors (for disclosing the gender of the foetus) and in 2015, the number was eight.
“However, in 2016, there has been only one registered case. This year, there are already many cases in the court and the inspection of sonography machines in the PMC limits is happening on a regular basis. We have 488 centres under our ambit. Along with this, awareness programmes for saving the girl child are being undertaken by the department at schools, colleges and anganwadis,” said Jadhav.
Speaking to Sakal Times, Dr Anjali Sabne, who is in charge of monitoring the MTP Act said that the department checks the MTP centres quarterly, with the help of four medical officers.
“All the documents of these MTP centres are checked. However, there has been no complaint filed under the MTP act in the past one year,” added Sabne.
Despite several attempts, Municipal Commissioner Kunal Kumar was not available for a comment.
