Kinnaur among 100 dists with poor sex ratio

Pratibha Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, April 24

The problem of declining child sex ratio is no longer confined to districts bordering Punjab and Haryana as the tribal district of Kinnaur too has witnessed a decline of 16 points, leading to its inclusion in the 100 districts where the sex ratio is very poor.

Statistics reveal that Kinnaur had a child sex ratio of 979 as per Census 2001. It had dipped to 963 in the 2011 census. The trend is even more worrisome as the child sex ratio of the adjoining district of Lahaul Spiti shot up from 961 to 1033 during the same period.

With a very small population in Kinnaur, though a decline of 16 points cannot be generalised, it clearly indicates that even those residing in interior parts are not untouched by the male-child preference syndrome.

Though till now only Una with a ratio of 875 had been included among the 100 districts in India with low sex ratio, now Kinnaur has been added to them for the implementation of various initiatives like “Beti Bachao, Beti Padao” by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development. Nichar block in Kinnaur ranks at No.19 in the list of 20 blocks with the lowest child sex ratio in Himachal.

The sex ratio of HP which was 950 in the 1991 census fell to 896 in the 2001 census, but it improved to 909 as per the 2011 census.

“Rather than waiting for the census held every 10 years, we are collecting data from our health officers annually so that we have the block wise child sex ratio figure and special emphasis can be laid on the 20 blocks with lowest ratio,” said Dr Surekha Chopra, OSD in the Department Health Safety Regulation.

With an average sex ratio of 909, it is the bordering districts of Una (875), Kangra (876), Hamirpur (887) and Solan (928) which have the lowest ratio on account of their proximity to towns like Pathankot, Kalka, Ropar and Nangal. Himachal has been pointing fingers at its neighbours for ultrasound clinics which are terminating female pregnancies.

The government has ordered the tracking of all pregnancies, births and child immunisation record in the entire state during the last one year to be able to identify the gaps and get to the root cause of the problem, especially in border areas.