The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ‘Ultrasound scanning being promoted’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Oct 08, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

‘Ultrasound scanning being promoted’

Sahana Charan

The imbalance in sex ratio is becoming pronounced with each passing year

Activists are working to prevent sex-selective killing of foetus
We strictly adhere to the provisions of law, says a company official

BANGALORE: Can conflicting viewpoints change the reality about falling child sex ratio in India? While activists working to prevent sex-selective killing of the female foetus insist that technology (ultrasound machines) and the greed of some medical professionals are the main reasons for the declining sex ratio in the country, a section of civil society seems to be in a denial mode.

Bangalore-based V. Raja, president and chief executive officer of GE Healthcare, South Asia and Managing Director, GE-Wipro, which has the largest market share of ultrasound machines in India, says the company is strict in adhering to the provisions of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prevention and Regulation of Misuse) Act, 2002.

The company had put many safeguards to ensure that the ultrasound machines manufactured by them were not used illegally for sex selection.

“We put stickers on all our ultrasound devices which say that sex determination is an offence. Internal audits are done to ensure that both the dealer and customer are adhering to the rule of law,” he said. But these measures have not been able to prevent corrupt medical practitioners from doing sex determination or dealers from selling the machines to them.

Varsha Deshpande, founder of the Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal in Maharashtra and legal advisor to the Satara district Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDT) Committee, maintains that despite non-registration, doctors in her State, especially in the prosperous belt of Satara, Kolhapur and Navi Mumbai, are using ultrasound machines to detect the sex of the foetus.

The Act, which came into force in 1996, bans the use of pre-natal diagnostic techniques, including ultrasound machines, to identify female foetuses and then abort them.

It was amended in 2003 to curb sex selection. Punishment for violating the Act includes a five-year jail term and a fine of Rs. 1,00,000.

Puneet Bedi, a senior gynaecologist from Delhi, says that ultrasound machines were promoted by the manufacturing companies as a necessary tool in prenatal care even though it has been found that ultrasound has no role to play in routine pregnancy. “Needs are being created to promote this kind of technology,” he says. In a country where the imbalance in sex ratio is becoming more pronounced with every passing year (child sex ratio according to the Census of India being 927 per 1,000 boys), the future of the girl child seems to be bleak.

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