Panchayat bhawans to display gender ratio

Our Correspondent

Una, June 11

With a view to reversing the trend of declining child sex ratio in Una district, the administration has decided to put up ‘Guddi-Gudda’ scrolls in all 235 panchayat bhawans. The boards will display the number of female and male infants born during the month in the panchayat, with the cumulative annual figures displayed along with it.

Deputy Commissioner Abhishek Jain today unveiled the scrolls at a district-level review programme of the Mother and Child Development Department at Bachat Bhawan. He said these scrolls would serve as a deterrent against the declining sex ratio in panchayats showing negative trends. Besides, these would be a source of encouragement to panchayats showing positive trends.

According to the 2011 Census, Una district had an overall sex ratio of 974 females against 1,000 males. However, the child sex ratio, which indicates the number of girls to boys in the 0 to 6 years age group was 906, pointing towards gender bias and selective termination of pregnancies.

According to the census, the child sex ratio in different district of the state was 1,013 in Lahul and Spiti, 962 in Kullu, 953 in Kinnaur, 950 in Chamba, 931 in Sirmaur, 922 in Shimla, 913 in Mandi, 899 in Solan, 893 in Bilaspur, 881 in Hamirpur, 873 in Kangra and 870 in Una.

Una district also figures among the 100 districts of the country having the lowest sex ratio. Prompted by the trends, the Union Ministry of Mother and Child Development launched the ‘Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao’ Flagship Mission programme and the Deputy Commissioner, along with health officials, were called in Chandigarh to participate in a mission workshop a few months ago, which was chaired by Maneka Gandhi.

The union ministry later sanctioned a project estimated at Rs 36.34 lakh under the Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao programme for Una district to tackle the social issue. The project includes components like Inter Sectoral Consultation meetings, training and capacity building of stakeholders, innovation and awareness generation activities, besides community mobilization and outreach activities.

Una SDM Dhanvir Thakur, Chief Medical Officer GR Kaushal and Programme Officer of the Mother and Child Development Department Ranjit Singh were also present.