Mumbai: In the wake of a shocking discovery
of female foeticide in Maharashtra's Beed district, Chief
Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Monday directed Health Minister
Suresh Shetty to visit Beed, and meet senior officials there.
A delegation comprising senior Congress leader Rajnitai
Patil, who hails from Beed district, met him here.
"The Chief Minister said he views the incident very
seriously and has asked the minister to visit Beed and hold a
meeting with senior administration and health officials,"
Patil said to a news agency.
Shetty will visit Beed next week, Patil said.
The district administration is maintaining that only two
foetuses were found in a drain last week, and not nine -- as
was reported in the media, based on the version of the locals.
Beed district has a dubious distinction of having the
lowest child sex ratio in Maharashtra with 801 girls per 1000
boys, while the state's average stands at 883.
"I visited the spot after learning about the discovery of
foetuses," Patil said. "There are 10 to 15 clinics there. They
just examine pregnant women and if foetus is female, carry out
abortion," Patil said.
"The provisions of Pre-conception and Pre-natal
Diagnostic Techniques Act are being overlooked...Doctors have
devised ingenious ways to convey the sex of the child," she
said. (The law prohibits doctors from revealing the sex of
unborn child.)
"They (doctors) say, 'come on Friday' if it is a female
child, and 'come on Monday' if it is a male child. On the
prescription, they write Jai Matadi if it is a female and Shri
Ganesh if a male.
Chavan has instructed Shetty to hold a meeting on the
implementation of PNDT Act," she added. "We demanded that a
special committee be formed to tackle such cases. We can
monitor machines used for sex determination to curb the
practice as is done in Kolhapur, Satara and Nanded
districts," Patil said.
PTI
First Published: Monday, June 13, 2011, 20:43