The Central Government has decided to cover eight more districts of Haryana under its ambitious ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ programme (BBBP) to create awareness about the protection and promotion of the girl child.
Haryana Women and Child Development Minister Kavita Jain on Wednesday said that these districts included Gurgaon, Jind, Faridabad, Hisar, Fatehabad, Sirsa, Panchkula and Palwal.
Initially, 12 districts of Haryana, namely Ambala, Kurukshetra, Kaithal, Yamunanagar, Sonepat, Panipat, Karnal, Mahendragarh, Rewari, Rohtak, Bhiwani and Jhajjar, with sex ratio imbalance were selected for the implementation of the programme last year.
The scope of the scheme has been widened and a decision to this effect has been taken in view of the performance of the scheme, which is being extended to 61 districts of eleven states in the country, she said.
‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ programme was launched by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in Panipat on January 22, 2015 to prevent gender-bias and sex selective elimination and ensure survival, education and participation of the girl child.
Haryana, which had the worst sex ratio among states in the 2011 Census, is aiming to achieve the target of more than 950 females per 1,000 males in the sex ratio at Birth (SRB) by the end of year 2016. It crossed the 900-mark in sex ratio for the first time in 10 years in December last year.
To improve the sex ratio in the state, Haryana Government had recently sought help of neighbouring Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh to curb sex determination tests. In separate letters addressed to his counterparts in neighboring states, Chief Minister Manohar lal Khattar had urged them to initiate necessary steps so that sex determination tests could be curbed in the region.