Board to monitor law against sex selection reconstituted

Alarmed over the census report highlighting skewed child sex ratio, the government has reconstituted the central supervisory board of the Pre-conception & Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 to make the law to curb female foeticide more effective.

The first meeting of the board is likely to be held in the last week of May. The provisional Census data showed that the girl child sex ratio in the 0-6 age group had slipped to an all-time low since Independence, and had dipped to 914.

It also brought forth the rampant misuse of the pre-conception and pre-natal diagnostic techniques despite a law to prevent that. It seems lack of proper monitoring and vigilance mechanism led to the failure of the law as well.

Health and family welfare minister Ghulam Nabi Azad will monitor the implementation of the law.

The board will recommend changes in the present Act, create public awareness against the practice of pre-conception sex selection and pre-natal determination of sex of the foetus leading to female foeticide and lay down code of conduct to be observed by persons working at genetic counseling centres.

Also, the Board would oversee the performance of various bodies constituted under the Act and take appropriate steps to ensure its proper and effective implementation.