NEW DELHI: Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has said that a national surveillance cell will be set up to check female foeticide. He also stressed the need to make punishment more stringent under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act. He was speaking at a national conference of State Secretaries and Directors General of Police on the PCPNDT Act organised by the National Commission for Women (NCW) here on Thursday.

Mr. Ramadoss said the cell would comprise retired police personnel, members of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and citizen groups which would conduct surprise checks on diagnostic clinics to ensure better implementation of the Act. The declining sex ratio was a result of problems in society. There was a need to give more teeth to the penal provisions under the Act, Mr. Ramadoss said.

The present fine of Rs. 1 lakh and imprisonment up to five years should be increased substantially to act as a proper deterrent, he said. There had been no convictions under the PCPNDT Act so far. And although the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act did not allow sex selective abortions, it was being misused "to prevent grave injury to the mental health of pregnant women" in pregnancy resulting from contraceptive failure. Hence, there was a need to monitor abortions conducted after 12 weeks of pregnancy and to modify the Act, speakers at the conference said.

The participants suggested that pregnancies after 12 weeks be reported to the Advisory Committee and that records of diagnosis done by ultrasound or other machines used for pre-natal diagnosis be kept for a specific period. Female foeticide should also be added as a separate offence under the MTP Act, they said.

Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Panabaka Lakshmi said the problem of declining sex ratio was being addressed under the National Rural Health Mission, adding that law alone would not solve the problem and that society had a role to play in curbing the practice.

NCW chairperson Girija Vyas said there was a need to make the PNDT Act stronger. The sex ratio in the country has declined from 976 girls per 1,000 boys in 1991 to 927 girls per 1,000 boys in 2001.

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