The coastal district of Cuddalore in northern Tamil Nadu is among the 100 selected districts across the country, where 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' scheme would be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 22.
The scheme, to be kickstarted at Sonipat in Haryana on Thursday and to be joined by all states and Union territories, aims at preventing gender-biased sex selective elimination and ensuring survival, protection, education and participation of the girl child, a PIB release said.
This will be put into practice by rigorous enforcement of all existing Legislations and Acts, especially by strengthening the implementation of Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994 with stern punishments for violations of the law, it said.
Multiple deprivation and violence faced by girls and women is reflected in the adverse and steeply declining child sex ratio in children under six years of age which reached an all time low of 918 girls for every 1000 boys in 2011.
The Ministry of Women and Child Development has finalized the operational guidelines, templates for district action plan and standardized training module for the scheme, it added.
