The Hindu : New Delhi News : Govt. forms task force to inspect ultra-sound clinics

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 18, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Govt. forms task force to inspect ultra-sound clinics

By Mandira Nayar

NEW DELHI, FEB. 17 . Finally waking up to the serious issue of a sharp decline in the child sex-ratio in the Capital, the Delhi Government has decided to form a task force to conduct surprise raids and inspections of private ultra-sound clinics and genetic centres.

"The task force shall have two legal experts as well as two experts from the social sector. We have sent out letters to the people we have identified and we will have a meeting next week to work out the modalities," revealed an official.

It might be more than a coincidence, argue experts, that the Delhi Government seems to be taking an interest in this issue soon after the Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Arjun Singh, wrote letters to the Chief Ministers of all States last month asking them to fill the gaps in implementation of the law against sex selection. Taking a serious note of the declining sex-ratio in the country, especially against the backdrop of a rise in crime against women, Mr. Singh asked the Chief Ministers to intensify efforts to ensure that the law was effective.

Interestingly, a group of non-government organisations also met Ms. Dikshit earlier this month to apprise her of the grave situation before the Delhi Government decided to even acknowledge that the sharp decline in child sex-ratio was really a problem.

While the Delhi Government is making some effort to start taking the law seriously, it will be a humungous task to actually get the law functioning on the ground. The other major obstacle in the path to getting the sex selection law to work is that it is not really a priority with the Government, feel experts, unlike the drive to eradicate polio.

With most chief district medical officers -- the appropriate authority to monitor the law against sex selection -- still not familiar with the legal aspects of the sex-selection crime, it will be really long before they manage to catch the guilty. "We are doctors and we really don't know how to make the law work. Also, we certain aspects of the law are unclear and we don't really know how to take the matter further after a complaint has been filed. We have asked for a legal expert to help us, but we are still waiting. By the time we get the hang of it, we have to move," a doctor complained.

However, doctors are not the only ones unclear about the law. Shockingly, the Law Department of the Delhi Government seems equally at sea even after 10 years of it being in existence. "There have been times when files have been returned to the cell monitoring the sex-selection law at the State level, because the Law Department doesn't have a copy of the Act. It is really sad, but very few people really know the law," revealed a source in the State Department of Health.

Ultra-sound clinics also take refuge in the same excuse and claim that some of them are still ignorant about the law. While there have been many seminars held with doctors in medical colleges as well as students, there has been very little effort to make the law clear to the implementers. And with them floundering in the dark still, there is really no hope for the sex-selection law to be really effective.

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