Ambaji pilgrims pledge before goddess to fight female foeticide

Pilgrims at the famous Ambaji temple in Banaskantha district found a new way to check the dwindling female sex ratio in the state - 8216;Sankalp Patras8217;.

Written by: Amrita Didyala

2 min readAhmedabadOct 13, 2008 12:00 AM IST

A total of five lakh 8216;Sankalp Patras8217; signed to save the girl child and curb sex discrimination

Pilgrims at the famous Ambaji temple in Banaskantha district found a new way to check the dwindling female sex ratio in the state 8211; 8216;Sankalp Patras8217;. The Ambaji Temple Committee members made the devotees sign the 8216;Sankalp Patras8217; to curb sex discrimination and female foeticide, along with a pledge to save the girl child. A total of five lakh 8216;Sankalp Patras8217; were signed.

R.J Patel, District Collector of Banaskantha and Chairman of the Ambaji Temple Committee, said: 8220;Out of the 25 lakh pilgrims who visited Ambaji Temple, a total of 5 lakh devotees signed the Sankalp Patras in a span of 5 days between September 11 and 15.8221;

He added: 8220;While the idea has been implemented for the first time at any religious place, the chances of its success are quite high as people have willingly taken a pledge before the goddess and are most likely to abide by it. In fact, we did not have to make too many efforts to persuade the devotees. All we had to do was to put up notice boards along with the Sankalp Patras.8221;

The Ambaji Development Authority also plans to implement the same method to make devotees pledge for saving the girl child by making the Sanklap Patras available in the soon-to-be developed replicas of the 51 Shaktipeeths at the Gabbar mountain.

Patel said: 8220;We have plans to extend the experiment to other religious destinations in the area as well. This is for the first time that such an experiment has been undertaken at a religious place in the state. However, with the active participation of future devotees, the awareness campaign is bound to be effective.8221;