By IANS
Chandigarh : The Congress party’s all-India spokesman Manish Tiwari Tuesday demanded that Punjab and Haryana seek the immediate intervention of the central government to get an American website, which sells gender determination kits, banned in the two states.
“The governments in Punjab and Haryana should immediately write to the centre to get the website selling sex determination kits for unborn children blocked. This is playing havoc in both states which already have the worst sex ratios in the country,” Tiwari told journalists here.
Tiwari said people in both states, particularly Punjab, were openly ordering the gender determination kit online and there was a need to block immediately the website.
“Both states have an acute sex ratio. People are buying the kits online and there is its rampant misuse,” he added.
With sex determination tests being banned in both states under the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) Act, people who have online access are buying such kits to determine the sex of unborn children.
Punjab and Haryana have a skewed sex ratio of around 800 females per 1,000 males – much lower than the national average of 933 females per 1,000 males. Fathegarh Sahib district in Punjab has one of the lowest sex ratios in the country at just 700 females per 1,000 males.
The sex determination kits are popularly called “jantar mantar” kits – taking from its original name gender mentor.
The Punjab government had, two years ago, proposed a ban on these gender determination kits but there is no stopping of the online sale.