A public awareness campaign on ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ was held at Parade Ground in Dehradun on Saturday as part of the state foundation celebration week.
Dehradun District Magistrate SA Murugesan flagged off the awareness rally organised by the state health department. He said that regretfully the girl child is still being considered as a burden on the family. Time warrants that the antediluvian attitude towards them must change, he said while addressing the participants, mostly students and Anganwadi workers, before the rally started from Parade Ground.
The awareness rally passed through various places and roads like Rajpur Road, Clock Tower, Darshan lal Chowk and lansdowne Chowk before it ended at Parade Ground. Students raised slogans, asking the society to change its attitude towards the girl child.
DM further said that the objective of the rally is to convince the people that the time has come when all discriminations between the sons and the daughters must cease. “Girls are now marching ahead and adorning top positions in all the fields of the administration and the like,” he said.
He further said that the administration is clamping down sex determination test before the child is born.
“If anybody comes to learn that such a thing is happening he or she must inform the administration and the medical officers immediately and it would be stopped promptly and those indulging in it would be booked under the appropriate sections of the laws,” DM said, adding that the celebration of the State foundation would be reduced to nothingness if the girls are not secure in the State.
On this occasion, Sambhav Natak Manch showed a play about the importance of Beti Bachao and Beti Padhao programme and several girls were awarded on the occasion.
DM administered an oath, stating they would work against determination of sex to the participants. Others present on the occasion were chief medical officer Dr YS Thapliyal, additional chief medical officer and district programme manager lakshman Singh Rawat, district programme coordinator Mamta Bahuguna and chief development project officer Kshama Bahuguna.