Society

'I Didn't Know Things Were So Bad'

The deputy commissioner of Nawanshahr, who has started a drive to check female foeticide, thinks it is possible to make a difference with enforcement of the law.

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'I Didn't Know Things Were So Bad'
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What prompted you to start this campaign?
When I joined at Nawanshahr in May last year, I began getting complaints from some locals about the dubious activities of a couple of nursing homes in the district. A retired government doctor who belongs to the district had also briefed me about the deteriorating sex ratio here. I realised that this is an area in which I can show results. With a little enforcement it is possible to make a difference.

Were you surprised at the survey results?
I had never imagined things could be so bad. The survey is helping me now to focus on those villages with a sex ratio of below 700:1000 and I am personally visiting these villages. I'm convinced that things are quite bad in the other districts too.

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Some of your enforcement mechanisms are rather unconventional.
The first thing I did was to compile a computerised database of all pregnant women in the district with their delivery dates, and this is updated every weekend. Our aim is to monitor these pregnancies. Pregnancies which end at three or four months are immediately suspect.

What sort of resistance do you encounter?
The village sarpanches rebelled initially, when I warned them that action would be taken against them if a case of female foeticide is detected in their villages. Now, we are not getting the right kind of information because pregnant women have begun concealing their pregnancies till the time they get the sex scan done which is usually in the first three months. So I've begun offering Rs 100 to whosoever reports an undetected pregnancy to us. I also realised that the anganwadi workers who are supposed to keep a record of pregnant women and births in their villages were deliberately not doing so to enable the women to escape detection. I've now begun visiting a couple of villages each weekend and we do an on-the-spot survey of children (0-6 years) in the village to cross check.

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Can this campaign in Punjab be sustained?
I don't find a permanent solution to the problem. Its too deeply entrenched in our society. My aim is to deter the main players through harassment, to create a fear of the law in the minds of the people.

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