Fight against foeticide: Sania's city shows way

Guess who is the poster boy of the Health Ministry and Women and Child Development Ministry for fighting against female foeticide? It is the district collector of Hyderabad Arvind Kumar.

Of all the districts in the country, Hyderabad is the only district which has proved that the Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act can be effectively implemented to actually effect a reversal in sex ratio.

The Collector, showed in a presentation before the ministries at the meeting of the central supervisory board on PNDT Act on Wednesday that there had been a dramatic increase in the number of girls born in the district of Sania Mirza, post implementation of the law against sex selection in the year 2005.

According to his presentation, the sex ratio in the district was favourable to girls only during three months in all the three years since 2002.

But the situation dramatically reversed in 2005. While the number of boys born last year was constant at 61,000, the number of girls born changed dramatically from 58,442 to 62,654 in 2005, Kumar said.

The Collector, who has been supported by his Chief Minister Rajshekhara Reddy amidst attacks by the medical fraternity, said that he had done nothing more than implementing the law which bans sex selection by ultrasound scanning and makes it mandatory for the ultrasound clinics to get patients to fill in Form F, which gives details about the patient as well as the name of the doctor who has recommended scanning.

He said that of the 389 registered scanning centres, he issued notices to 374 for violation of the law within four months. While 102 registrations were cancelled, 112 machines were seized. Three companies which supplied the machines were also prosecuted for dealing with unregistered clinics.

"While 20 ultrasound centres are now facing prosecution, one doctor has been arrested," he told the meeting. "I have not done anything beyond implement the law," he said modestly, adding that the positive sex ratio favouring girls need not be attributed to his work either.

But he wanted recognition for one achievement. When two journalists visited 70 clinics recently asking for scanning 62 of them refused saying it was illegal. That is an achievement, he said.