By IANS,
New Delhi : After the preliminary Census 2011 report presented a skewed child-sex ratio in India, the government Saturday reconstituted the supervisory board on pre-conception and pre-natal diagnostic techniques, tasked with curbing their misuse for female foeticide.
The reconstituted board will have Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad as its chairman and Women and Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath as the co-chair, a health ministry official said. Health Secretary K. Chandramouli will be the vice-chairman.
The 35-member board will have two geneticists, gynaecologists and obstetricians, paediatricians, social scientists and representatives of women welfare organisations each, three woman MPs, and also four members from states and union territories on rotational basis.
The three women MPs will be Prabha Kishor Taviad and Poonamben Veljibhai Jat from the Lok Sabha and Mabel Rebello from the Rajya Sabha.
Among its main functions, the board will advise the central government on policy matters relating to use of pre-natal diagnostic techniques, sex selection techniques and against their misuse. It will review and monitor implementation of the Act and rules made under it.
“It will recommend the government changes required in the act and rules and also how to spread public awareness against female foeticide and infanticide,” an official said.
“It will also look after the effective implementation of laws,” he added.
According to 2011 census, child sex ratio (0 to 6) declined to reach an all time low of 914 – down from a ratio of 927 in the 2001 census.
The first meeting of the reconstituted board is likely to be held in the last week of May.
Prior to that, a review meeting of state health secretaries has been scheduled on April 20 for an in-depth review of the implementation of the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PC & PNDT Act) – which bans the use of sex selection techniques before or after conception as well as misuse of pre-natal diagnostic techniques for sex selective abortions, and to chalk out a concerted action plan to check the practice of sex selection leading to female foeticide.