As sex-ratio worsens, govt plans to rope in religious leaders to ‘change mindset’

According to figures available with the state Health and Family Welfare Department, the sex ratio in the 0-6 age group is 835 in Surat, 842 in Mehsana, 857 in Ahmedabad, 862 in Rajkot and 847 in Gandhinagar.

“In most of the cases, parents prefer to have a son only if they chose to go for single child. This is required to be improved by changing the mindset of the people and convincing them that a girl child was as good as a boy,” Ravi said, adding that it was unfortunate that the birth rate of females in urban and educated families was less than in less educated society and rural areas.

“It is not at all related to poverty. It is a question of mindset and social culture… The government alone cannot handle the issue which is very serious… It is the collective responsibility of the society… Let religious and social organisations and also people from media come forward and do whatever they can to improve the situation with regard to the birth of the female child,” she said at a press conference on various government programmes to be held on the occasion of International Women’s Day on March 8

With a view to implement Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’’ government programme to improve birth rate of females, she said that the state government had planned a number of initiatives like giving assistance of Rs 6,000 to a couple on the birth of their female child, holding public programmes by using services of religious leaders and institutions to create awareness about importance of females in the society and increasing enrollment of girl child in schools.

The state government has also set aside a budget of Rs 20 crore under Vidyalaxmi Bond for girl students of primary and secondary schools for the current financial year, she said.

The government has also decided to give free education to 14,61,560 girl students studying from Class IX to XII in 5,374 in grant-in-aid schools across the state.

Terming the falling sex ratio as “a matter of great concern for all”, Gayatri Parivar’s chief in Gujarat, Bhailal Thakar said, “This needs to be taken up as an urgent agenda.”

Jamaat-e-Islami’s Gujarat unit representative Iqbal Mirza said: “What is astonishing is that parents themselves are not allowing girls to be born.This makes the issue very serious. We need to change materialistic approach of the society to tackle this issue.”