For effectively curbing female foeticide, Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) cells are being constituted in 13 worst affected districts of the State including Indore, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Gwalior, Ujjain, Satna, Dewas, Sagar, Dhar, Mandsaur, Chhindwara, Ratlam and Hoshangabad.
This was informed at a meeting of State Advisory Committee constituted under Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act here on Sunday.
The meeting was chaired by Director Health & Family Welfare Dr Navneet Mohan Kothari.
The meeting was informed that more cases of misuse of sonography are coming to the fore comparatively in educated and economically better section.
Fifty per cent of such cases have come to the fore in State’s five big cities including Indore, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Gwalior and Ujjain.
The meeting discussed efforts to ensure that competency test be made mandatory for renewal of registration, regular monitoring of sonography centres, authentic investigation into suspicious cases, increasing public awareness for improving skewed gender ratio, positive impact of schemes like ladli laxmi, Mukhyamantri Kanyadan, Swagatam laxmi, Shaurya Dal etc. for changing age-old mindset of people vis-à-vis birth of girl children.
The members of State Advisory Committee who participated in the meeting included Additional Secretary Amitabh Mishra, All-India Women Conference’s Sarla Mathur, Director IEC Bureau Health Services Dr BN Chouhan, paediatricians of Gandhi Medical College Dr Rashmi Dwivedi, D. Vandana Sharma, Dr Shalini Kapoor, Dr Swati and UNFPA’s Dr PR Dev and others.
It may be mentioned that PCPNDT Act, 1994, is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted to stop female feticides and arrest the declining sex ratio in India.
The Act banned prenatal sex determination. The main purpose of enacting the Act is to ban the use of sex selection techniques before or after conception and prevent the misuse of prenatal diagnostic technique for sex selective abortion.