By IANS,
Palanpur (Gujarat) : ‘Save the girl child’ rally that Chief Minister Narendra Modi flagged off on its last leg in Surat reached Unjha Sunday after passing through nine districts of Gujarat.
“This rally has a special message to convey to Unjha since it has the lowest female birth ratio in the state,” said Mathurbhai Savani, president of the Saurashtra Jaldhara Trust (SJT), which is sponsoring the rally.
According to official figures, in 2001 Unjha had an alarmingly skewed female child ratio.
“Intensive efforts of NGOs and the state government during last couple of years have begun to bear fruit,” said Mehsana district’s Chief District Health Officer (CDHO) Nayanbhai Jani.
“After the ‘Save Girl Child’ campaign of the NGOs and the state government gathered momentum, there is a change in female birth ratio of Unjha taluka (sub-district) which had slumped to 742 per thousand in 2001 as against 888 per thousand in 1991, a gap of 146 in a span of 10 years,” Jani said.
“With latest inputs and a comparative analysis of the figures of 2006 and 2007 data supplied by the CDHO of Mehsana, the figures of new-born female children in Unjha were 1,622 vis-à-vis male children’s 1,879 in 2006. In 2007 it was 1,381 female children against 1,518 male, a rise of 16.44 and 19.45 percent respectively,” Jani said.
The rally has moved through nine districts after collecting river water from various places as a symbolic oath against female foeticide.
It will reach Somnath Wednesday and the water collected will be poured into the Arabian sea.