Sex Ratio: India

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Change in sex ratio between 2001 and 2011. Chart: The Times of India

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Child sex ratio: the extent of the problem

1951-2011: State-wise Sex Ratio (Female per 1000 Males) in India

planningcommission

	Census year
States/UTs	1901	1911	1921	1931	1941	1951	1961	1971	1981	1991	2001	2011 (Prov.)
India	972	964	955	950	945	946	941	930	934	927	933	940
A& N Islands	318	352	303	495	574	625	617	644	760	818	846	878
Andhra Pradesh	985	992	993	987	980	986	981	977	975	972	978	992
Arunachal Pradesh	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	894	861	862	859	901	920
Assam	919	915	896	874	875	868	869	896	910	923	932	954
Bihar	1061	1051	1020	995	1002	1000	1005	957	948	907	921	916
Chandigarh	771	720	743	751	763	781	652	749	769	790	773	818
Chhatisgarh	1046	1039	1041	1043	1032	1024	1008	998	996	985	990	991
Dadra & N. Haveli	960	967	940	911	925	946	963	1007	974	952	811	775
Daman & Diu	995	1040	1143	1088	1080	1125	1169	1099	1062	969	709	618
Delhi	862	793	733	722	715	768	785	801	808	827	821	866
Goa	1091	1108	1120	1088	1084	1128	1066	981	975	967	960	968
Gujarat	954	946	944	945	941	952	940	934	942	934	921	918
Haryana	867	835	844	844	869	871	868	867	870	865	861	877
Himachal Pradesh	884	889	890	897	890	912	938	958	973	976	970	974
Jammu & Kashmir	882	876	870	865	869	873	878	878	892	896	900	883
Jharkhand	1032	1021	1002	989	978	961	960	945	940	922	941	947
Karnataka	983	981	969	965	960	966	959	957	963	960	964	968
Kerala	1004	1008	1011	1022	1027	1028	1022	1016	1032	1036	1058	1084
Lakshadweep	1063	987	1027	994	1018	1043	1020	978	975	943	947	946
Madhya Pradesh	972	967	949	947	946	945	932	920	921	912	920	930
Maharashtra	978	966	950	947	949	941	936	930	937	934	922	925
Manipur	1037	1029	1041	1065	1055	1036	1015	980	971	958	978	987
Meghalaya	1036	1013	1000	971	966	949	937	942	954	955	975	986
Mizoram	1113	1120	1109	1102	1069	1041	1009	946	919	921	938	975
Nagaland	973	993	992	997	1021	999	933	871	863	886	909	931
Orissa	1037	1056	1086	1067	1053	1022	1001	988	981	971	972	978
Pondicherry	NA	1058	1053	NA	NA	1030	1013	989	985	979	1001	1038
Punjab	832	780	799	815	836	844	854	865	879	882	874	893
Rajasthan	905	908	896	907	906	921	908	911	919	910	922	926
Sikkim	916	951	970	967	920	907	904	863	835	878	875	889
Tamil Nadu	1044	1042	1029	1027	1012	1007	992	978	977	974	986	995
Tripura	874	885	885	885	886	904	932	943	946	945	950	961
Uttar Pradesh	938	916	908	903	907	908	907	876	882	876	898	908
Uttarakhand	918	907	916	913	907	940	947	940	936	936	964	963
West Bengal	945	925	905	890	852	865	878	891	911	917	934	947

Note :

1. For working out the sex ratio of India and Assam for 1981, interpolated figures for Assam have been used

2. For working out the sex ratio of India and Jammu and Kashmir, interpolated figures have been used

Source : Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India.

Child sex ratio in 2020

Prashant Jha , June 7, 2021: The Times of India

Uttarakhand’s child sex ratio is currently among the worst in the country, as per the sustainable development goals (SDG) indicators released by Niti Aayog a few days ago.

The state’s performance has been steadily declining over the years as far as child sex ratio is concerned. The third National Family Health Survey (NFHS) done in 2005-06 revealed Uttarakhand’s sex ratio at birth was of 912 female births per 1,000 male births, which was below the then national average of 914.

This year, the ratio stands at 840, making Uttarakhand the state with the worst sex ratio at birth.

Several states which previously had highly skewed sex ratios at birth have shown improvements. Punjab and Haryana, where the sex ratio at birth was 734 and 762 respectively in 2005-06, increased to 860 and 836 by 2015-16. In 2021, Punjab improved its sex ratio to 890 while Haryana’s has reached 843.

Himachal Pradesh was almost on par with Uttarakhand in 2005-06, when sex ratio at birth was 913. This year, the state’s ’s figures have increased to 930.

Kerala has been the best performer as per the current SDG survey, with 957 females born per 1,000 males in the state in 2021. \

1999-2010: Sex ratio at birth (SRB)

Born Unequal? '

The Times of India Oct 27 2014

The Times of India

The child sex ratio (CSR), which is the number of girls aged 0 to 6 for every 1,000 boys of the same age, indicates the combined effect of extent of pre and post-birth gender discrimination. But it is the sex ratio at birth (SRB) that gives an indication of pre-birth discrimination or female feticide. The Census office has estimated SRB by back calculations from the actual observed population to arrive at what is called the implied SRB in the period 1999-2000 and 2004-10. It was found that half the states in the country, barring J&K, for which comparisons aren't available, have seen the ISRB drop by between 3 points and 33 points, Uttarakhand registering the worst decline.

2011: Older mothers and the sex ratio

The Times of India

2011: Older mothers and the sex ratio

Mar 03 2015

Rema Nagarajan

Child sex selection seems to go up with the age of a mother, fresh data from Census 2011 shows. The sex ratio among children born to young mothers in the 15-19 age group was the highest, after which there was a steady decline till the 45-49 age group.This pattern held true across the country with no exception seen in any state, whether in rural or urban areas. The latest Census data on births that happened in the year preceding the survey showed that the ratio of number of girls to 1,000 boys, born to mothers in the 15-19 age group, was 938, way higher than the sex ratio of 899 for all children born during the year.

About 2.08 crore children were born in the year before the survey . The data showed that the sex ratio declined as the age of the mothers increased, falling from 927 and 897 in the 20-24 and the 25-29 age groups, respectively , to just 856 and 824 in the 40-44 and 45-49 age groups.

Since natural causes cannot explain this pattern, it appears this could be because, in the younger age group, where many of the children would be first-borns, there would be greater tolerance for girls. But, with advancing birth order and age of the mother, the pressure to produce a son would increase.

Interestingly, even in states with the best sex ratios, this pattern of a steep decline in the ratio with increasing age of the mother held true.

2011: Rural India beats cities in sex tests

[ From the archives of the Times of India]

Kounteya Sinha | TNN

An analysis of Census 2011 by the Union health ministry on the eve of the crucial meeting of the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act’s (PC & PNDT Act) Central Supervisory Board (CSB) has shown that the hideous crime against a girl child has become more prevalent among families in rural India.

Consider Delhi, where sex selection was common among the urban population. Census 2011 says Delhi’s rural childsex ratio (CSR) fell by 41 points against just two points in urban areas. West Bengal’s rural CSR dipped by 11 points compared to five points in urban areas. Rural CSR in Jammu and Kashmir fell by 97 points as against 19 points in urban CSR. Uttarakhand saw a similar trend. Rural CSR in the hill state fell by 24 points against a dip of 8 points in urban areas. In Chhattisgarh, rural CSR fell by 10 points against six points in urban areas. Madhya Pradesh too recorded a massive drop in rural CSR — minus 22 points against a fall of 12 in urban settings.

Rajasthan’s rural CSR fell by 28 points against 18 points in urban areas, while Sikkim’s CSR fell by 14 points among its rural families. Nagaland saw a massive tumble of its rural CSR: it fell by 37 points, while urban areas saw an increase by 40 points. Maharashtra saw a 36-point fall in its rural CSR against a 20-point dip in urban areas. Andhra Pradesh, Lakshadweep and Goa also recorded a fall in their rural CSR. A Union ministry official said, “Overall across India, child-sex ratio fell by 15 points in rural India as against 4 points in urban India. Earlier, sex selection was more an urban phenomenon. Now, the trend has clearly shifted to rural areas. One of the main reasons for this is portable ultrasound machines. Operators of these machines and doctors realized that the market was in rural India.” This is why India has decided to ban unregistered “on call” portable ultrasound machines. Agenda number V of the CSB meeting says, “amendment with regard to regulation of portable ultrasound equipment to curb their widespread misuse”.

An increasing number of portable ultrasound machines are being registered as being “on call”, or they could be taken anywhere anytime to conduct an ultrasound test. Delhi was the first state to register such “on-call” portable ultrasound machines, a trend that has spread across the country. An official added, “Such portable machines are being taken in two-wheelers to conduct the sex determination of an unborn child.”

India has about 35,000 ultrasound clinics. Earlier, studies had said about 5-7 lakh girls a year, or 2,000 girls a day go missing in India due to female feticide.

2011: the best and worst states

See graphic ‘’': The sex ratio in the Indian states, the best and worst states in 2011

The sex ratio in the Indian states, the best and worst states in 2011; The Times of India, August 5, 2017

2011, sex ratio

See graphic: Sex Ratio in 2011

Sex Ratio in 2011; The Times of India, August 14, 2017

2007- 2013: Some improvements

The Times of India

Jan 02 2015

Sex Ratio: 2007-2013 (Before birth and as an infant)

More girls are being born, but fewer surviving

Subodh Varma

There is good news and bad news on one of the key problems that haunts India -survival of the girl child. Sex ratio at birth, that is, number of girls born for every 1,000 boys born, has inched up from 906 to 909 between 2007 and 2013. This suggests that female feticide, the monstrous practice of killing off the girl baby in the mothers' womb has been somewhat checked.That's the good news.

The bad news is that the child sex ratio, that is, number of girls in the 0-4 year age group for every 1,000 boys in the same age group, has declined from 914 to 909 in the same period.

Information on sex ratios is made available by the Census office based on their sample registration system (SRS) annual surveys over the years.

Experts and activists say that the slight increase in sex ratio at birth is not very significant though it is a welcome trend. They feel that laws prohibiting sex selection are not very effective.

“Perhaps, in cities, there is some prevention of sex selection due to laws but there is spread of this heinous practice in rural areas and in regions where earlier it was not there,“ argues Kirti Singh, lawyer and women's rights activist.

Ravinder Kaur, professor at IIT Delhi who has studied sex ratios and related family issues also said that laws and campaigns have not contrib uted much in controlling sex selection. “Sex determination services are still available for those who seek them. The change is due more to complex social changes happening including fertility decline, improvements in socio-eco nomic circumstances, etc.“

But the slight uptick in sex ratio at birth is negated by what happens to girls who are born and survive. Neglect, discrimination and in extreme cases even killing of very young girls is behind dipping child sex ratio. “There is a tendency to give the girl less food, or not treat her sickness with the same urgency as a boy's. There are many court cases on deaths of small girls.All this points to deep discrimination against girls,“ Kirti Singh said.

The increases and decreases are small at the country level but at the state level sharper trends are visible. Again, these are good and bad.

The good news is that Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan, which were the worst four states in terms of sex ratios both at birth and at the 0-4 age group, are the only states in the country where sex ratios at both levels are improving. Clearly , social outrage backed by better regulation has had some effect.In all four states, sex ratios are still below 900, pointing to the long road ahead.

But in six states -Assam, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal -sex ratio both at birth and in the 0-4 age group are going down.

This is worrisome because these are states which had better sex ratios and now appear to be heading the way some of the north Indian states went earlier.

Apart from the six states above, sex ratio at birth has also declined in Andhra Pradesh (pre-division), Bihar, Chhattisgarh, and Himachal Pradesh. Child sex ratio has declined in Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh, besides the six states.

“There is no common explanation for the decline in some of the eastern and southern states; again a mix of fertility shifts, rise of son preference due to spread of dowry in some of these states etc. are decisive factors,“ Ravinder Kaur said.

2007-16:  Andhra, Rajasthan worst

Rema Nagarajan, Bad news for girls: Sex ratio at birth plunges in south, January 28, 2019: The Times of India

States with the worst sex ratios, 2007-16
From: Rema Nagarajan, Bad news for girls: Sex ratio at birth plunges in south, January 28, 2019: The Times of India

Kerala Is Lone State To Buck Alarming Trend

Abysmal sex ratios have generally been associated with states like Haryana and Punjab. However, the data for 2007 to 2016 on sex ratio at birth, an indication of which way the sex ratio will move in coming years, shows that southern states barring Kerala have witnessed some of the most dramatic drops.

Data collated by the office of the Registrar General of India from the civil registration system (CRS) showed that in 2016, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan had the worst sex ratio at birth (SRB) of

806. Tamil Nadu was sixth from the bottom with its ratio falling from 935 in 2007 to 840, compared with the all-India figure of 877. In Karnataka, it fell from 1,004 to 896. In Telangana, it fell from 954 in 2013, when the state was formed, to 881.

Since most of these states have achieved near 100% registration of births, the low ratios cannot be because large numbers of female births aren’t getting registered.

In the case of Andhra Pradesh, the drop to 806 in 2016 from 971 the previous year does seem abnormal. LN Prema Kumari, joint director of census operations in Andhra, said the sudden fall was due to the confusion created by the bifurcation of population between Andhra and Telangana. However, the bifurcation happened in 2013 and the data from then till 2015 does not show any sharp variations though the data for both states see-saws over the years. Also, in 2016 both states have witnessed a fall in the ratio.

Tamil Nadu had dropped steadily from an SRB of 939 in 2006 to an all-time low of 818 in 2015. Compared to that, 840 in 2016, though lower than even Haryana’s 865, was an improvement. Since 2011, the state’s SRB has been lower than the all-India one. In Karnataka too, ever since 2011, when it achieved 98% birth registration and an SRB of 983, the ratio has steadily declined.

‘Fall in sex ratio due to registration system’

Sabu George, an activist who has worked for decades on the issue of falling sex ratios, explained that while declining sex ratios in southern states were a worry and a reality, they seem to be too low in 2016. “I think there is a problem in the birth registration system in some districts in these states, which is pulling the overall ratio down,” he said.

This analysis by TOI does not consider the smaller states and Union territories since the number of births in these are too small for any firm conclusions.

Between 2007 and 2016, states which earlier had extremely low sex ratios at birth such as Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Maharashtra, have improved, with Delhi and Assam showing the most significant jump from 848 to 902 and from 834 to 888 respectively. But many others like West Bengal, Odisha, Jammu and Kashmir and Goa are slipping downwards.

In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the SRB fell from 924 to 837 and from 930 to 885 respectively. With just 60% birth registration, these numbers may not give an accurate picture. But anecdotally sex selection is leading to lower ratios in these states too. Madhya Pradesh too had just about 75% registration of births.

TN’s sex ratio could have a passport twist to it

Rema Nagarajan, TN’s skewed sex ratio could have a passport twist to it, January 29, 2019: The Times of India

Births registered in TN, 2015-17
From: Rema Nagarajan, TN’s skewed sex ratio could have a passport twist to it, January 29, 2019: The Times of India

Eyeing Foreign Jobs, Youths Register Births

Tamil Nadu’s alarmingly low sex ratio at birth of 840 in 2016 according to the civil registration system could be due to a large number of adults registering their birth in recent years in a bid to get passports made. According to National Health Mission officials in Tamil Nadu, if only the births in a particular year are considered, the state’s sex ratio at birth was a much healthier 932 in 2016.

Ever since it became mandatory to produce a birth certificate in order to get a passport made, a large number of adults seeking jobs abroad have been registering their births every year. Most of these are men. In 2016, for instance, registrations done more than a year after birth accounted for 1.42 lakh in Tamil Nadu. Of these, over a lakh were males and less than 41,000 were females.

This skew in registrations which gets counted in the total civil registration of births in a year, the officials explained, is what is depressing the sex ratio of births in the CRS. Including such registrations done after the first year in total birth registrations in a year and calling the ratio derived from it “sex ratio at birth” has led to the misleading statistic.

According to the state’s Health Management & Information System, the actual sex ratio at birth after dipping steadily from 923 in 2012-13 has been going up from 2016 onwards.

“The practice of Lok Adalats issuing direction for birth registration to be issued also led to a large number of men getting their births registered through this route. In 2015, this practice was stopped by the courts and it was decided that birth certificates will be issued only after an enquiry by the revenue department. Thus, the process has become more stringent and this is reflected in the sudden fall in registration of births after one year in 2017. From more than one lakh such registrations in a year it has fallen to just over 31,000,” explained a senior official of the National Health Mission in Tamil Nadu.

He added that his department was closely monitoring second trimester abortions to prevent sex selective abortions and cracking down on errant ultrasound clinics. “By cracking down on the errant ones we are allowing the good ones to run without any hindrance. This is important for maternal health as timely ultrasound also helps bring down maternal mortality, which is also one of our important targets,” he explained. He added that Tamil Nadu’s sex ratio at birth is expected to touch 950 by 2021, close to the natural sex ratio of 952 girls for every 1,000 boys born.

2013: Child sex ratio nine states worsens

Child sex ratio in nine states worsens (in 2013??)

Rema Nagarajan TIG

Child sex ratio

The Times of India

In many of India’s least developed states, girls are disappearing not so much from foeticide as from infanticide or just plain neglect of the girl child leading to more number of girls dying. This is revealed in the latest Annual Health Survey data of the census office, which shows a substantial fall in the sex ratio in the 0-4 years age group in several districts spread across nine states. Since many of these are the most populous states, this fall would account for lakhs of missing girls.

In fact, in four of the nine states, it is not just specific districts but the entire state that has seen a worsening of the 0-4 sex ratio. What is also worrying about this trend is that most of these states have traditionally had better sex ratios than the national average. The malaise, it appears, is growing even where it wasn’t much in evidence in the past. In a majority of the districts in these states, the sex ratio at birth has actually improved.

But about 84 of the 284 districts recorded a fall, even if in 31 of them the fall was marginal. The fall in sex ratio in the 0-4 age group is more widespread, with 127 districtsexhibiting thistrend,46 of them showing a significant drop. The census office has been conducting an annual health survey in nine states – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Assam. A baseline survey conducted in 2007-09 has been followed up by similar ones in 2010 and 2011. Jharkhand, which had a relatively better sex ratio to begin with, and Rajasthan, which figured at the bottom of the pile, have shown the greatest improvement in both sex ratio at birth (SRB) and the 0-4 sex ratio.

States that started off with high sex ratio in both categories,such asChhattisgarh and Assam, have recorded the biggest declines in 0-4 category along with Bihar and Odisha.

In UP, 30% of the districts recorded a fall in the 0-4 age group.In Chhattisgarh,the ratio fell in 13 out of 16 districts. As a result, the state’s 0-4 sex ratio fell from 978 to 965.

In Bihar, 21 of 37 districts registered a decline in 0-4 sex ratio.In Orissa,the0-4sex ratio declinedin 21outof 30districts. Uttarakhand had the worst sex ratio among these nine states to start with and despite showing some improvement, it continues to be the worst.

2014: No improvement in sex ratio

The Times of India, Aug 28 2015

Female deaths per day in Delhi and mortality sex ratio, year-wise: 2010-14; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, Aug 28 2015

Alarm over sex ratio failing to improve

There is cause for concern as Delhi's sex ratio remains low with the civil registration data putting it down at 896 females per 1,000 males in 2014. This is just one point up from the 2013 sex ratio status.The data only underlines the urgency required for the Delhi government to focus deeply on implementation of the provisions of Pre-Conception PreNatal Diagnostic Techniques Act to prevent illegal sex determination and female foeticide. The data was released as part of the annual report on registration of births and deaths in Delhi in 2014 by deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday . A crackdown on clinics illegally carrying out sex determinay tion and executing abortions is the need of the hour, say experts working on gender and women's rights.

The sex ratio was merely 809:1,000 in 2001 and showed a gradual rise to 848:1,000 in 2007. There was a dramatic improvement in 2008 at 1,004 females per 1,000 males. This was attributed to the implementation of the Ladli scheme for girls that year. The sex ratio, however, again saw a decline but was still high at 915:1,000 in 2009. But the decline continued next year when it touched 901:1,000 and then went further down to 893:1,000 in 2011 and 886:1,000 in 2012. In 2013 there was some improvement with the ratio up nine points at 895:1,000. In 2014 it moved up only by one point.

The national conference of chief registrars (births & deaths) held in 2003 had unanimously recommended monitoring of the sex ratio on a regular basis at the state and union territory levels, taking into account the alarming decline. Complying with that mandate, Delhi has been doing monthly monitoring of sex ratio of institutional births since 2004.

The data is collected on a monthly basis from 50 major hospitals which accounts for 51.97% of the total registered births in 2014 in Delhi. This helps to review the sex ratio at the highest level in the shortest possible time without waiting for yearly indicators. The sex ratio on the basis of institutional births on the basis of these hospitals comes out to 894:1,000 for 2014.

2015-16: the best and worst districts

Ambika Pandit|`Beti Bachao' helps bridge sex-ratio gap|Jul 29 2017 : The Times of India (Delhi)

North Sikkim is on top and Kolkata is the worst in the list of districts evaluated for child-sex ratio. While North Sikkim has moved from 831girls per 1,000 boys in 2014 to a remarkable 1009 girls, Kolkata which boasted of a sex ratio of 1,022 girls per 1,000 boys is down to 898 girls.

“In fact, Kolkata is unfortunately the worst of 161 districts that we have taken,“ said women and child welfare minister Maneka Gandhi in the Lok Sabha on Friday , sharing details of districts selected under the `Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' programme.

Gandhi's remarks saw Mriganka Mahato, Trinamool MP from Purulia, cite the success of West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee's `kanyashree' programme launched in 2011 and requested the Centre that the programme be taken up by other states too.

To this Gandhi was quick to point that, “While the programme which the West Bengal government has launched on its own is effective, it is the only state in India which has completely refused to implement Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) scheme. As a result, out of 161 districts, Kolkata is showing a severe declining trend“. Gandhi said out of the 161 districts where BBBP has been implemented, 104 districts have shown an increasing trend in sex ratio at birth.

2015-16: the districts with the best and worst sex ratios

Besides North Sikkim, the districts Gandhi highlighted are Karnal where sex ratio is up from 758 to 884, Saiha in Mizoram where the trend reversed from 915 girls per 1,000 boys to 1,022 girls. “In Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu, it has gone up from 856 to 957; in Ghaziabad, it has gone up from 899 to 977; in Mansa in Punjab, it has gone up from 857 to 925; in Una in Himachal Pradesh, it has gone up from 857 to 904; in Rewari, it has gone up from 803 to 846 and in Jhansi it has gone up from 860 to 900,“ Maneka said. “You can see from this that it is across the board. It really is dependent on the enthusiasm of the state government and the ability and enthusiasm of the district head. We seem to have done well across the board,“ she emphasised.

2015-19: ratio at birth rises from 923 to 931

Ambika Pandit, June 23, 2019: The Times of India

All-India sex ratio at birth, 2015-19
The best five states and the worst five states
From: Ambika Pandit, June 23, 2019: The Times of India

The all-India sex ratio at birth (SRB) went up by eight points since 2015-16 to 931 girls per 1,000 boys till March this year with Kerala and Chhattisgarh at the top of the heap with 959, followed closely by Mizoram (958) and Goa (954). At the bottom of the list are Daman & Diu (889), Lakshadweep (891) and Punjab (900). Sex ratio is expressed as the number of girls per 1,000 boys.

The all-India SRB was 923 in 2015-16, 926 girls in 2016-17 and 929 girls in 2017-18, according to data presented by the ministry of women and child development in Parliament in reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on the government’s flagship “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” scheme.

Of the 21 states and UTs where SRB increased from 2017-18, the highest increase of 51 points was in Andaman & Nicobar Islands from 897 girls to 948 girls, followed by Sikkim (from 928 to 948) and Telangana (925 to 943). There are 12 states which registered a decline as compared to 2017-18. The steepest fall, of 42 points, was seen in Arunachal Pradesh (from 956 girls to 914).

Haryana shows improved sex ratio

Arunachal was followed by Jammu & Kashmir (958 girls to 943 girls), Tamil Nadu (from 947 girls to 936 girls) and Maharashtra (from 940 girls to 930).

Chhattisgarh, which has the highest sex ratio at birth (SRB) in 2018-19 along with Kerala, actually registered a decline of SRB from 961 in 2017-18. Kerala too has shown a decline this year as compared to 964 in 2017-18. A comparison between SRB for 2015-16 and 2018-19 shows 25 states showing a rise and 11 registering a decline. Sikkim and Arunachal have shown the maximum decline.

Among the 25 states where the SRB rise was highest between 2015-16 and 2018-19 includes Lakshadweep (832 to 891 — 59 points), Andaman & Nicobar Islands (890 to 948 — 58 points), Goa (918 to 954 — 36 points), Nagaland (904 to 936 — 32 points) and Uttarakhand (906 to 938 — 32 points). Haryana, where the BJP government’s BBBP scheme was launched in January 2015, showed an improvement from 887 girls per 1,000 boys in 2016 to 914 in 2017-18 and 2018-19.

2015- 21

Nov 26, 2021: The Times of India

Sex ratio at birth in India, state-wise, 2019- 21
From: Nov 26, 2021: The Times of India

The latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data for 2019-21 indicates that India has more females than males with its overall sex ratio having risen to 1,020 after seeing a dip from 1,000 in 2005-06 to 991 in 2015-16. The sex ratio at birth (SRB), however, was still worryingly low at 929, indicating continued sex selection at birth, despite an improvement from the previous survey.

The increase in overall sex ratio is a combination of increased life expectancy of women and improvement in the sex ratio at birth or the number of female births for every 1,000 male births. India’s poor sex ratio at birth has been a source of national shame and concern as it indicates a general preference for a male child and also that lakhs of female foetuses are being killed.

The NFHS-5 sex ratio data seems to be at variance with that of the census. For instance, according to the 2001 census, India’s overall sex ratio was 933, but NFHS-3 conducted in 2005-06 pegged it at 1,000. Again, the 2011 census found the sex ratio to be 940, but according to NFHS-4 (20015-16) it was 991. Being a sample survey, NFHS data could be less accurate and only the next census would reveal whether there actually are more females than males in India, though both sources show a steady improvement in overall sex ratio.

Sex ratio at birth of just 929 for the five years preceding the latest survey is still well below the mark of 952 that the WHO estimates as the natural sex ratio at birth.

The practice of sex selection at birth continues to be prevalent in most parts of India with the practice spreading to even parts that traditionally had better sex ratio such as tribal states of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh and southern states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu. However, some of the states with the worst sex ratio at birth, such as Delhi, Haryana and Punjab, showed significant improvement.

SRB of 929 is a definite improvement over 914 in 2005-06 and 919 in 2015-16, but several bigger states, including Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Bihar and Maharashtra, saw a worsening the ratio since the last survey. These were offset by significant improvement in SRB in a much higher number of large states, including Karnataka, Haryana, Gujarat, Punjab, UP, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. In most states, the sex ratio at birth is lower in urban areas where there is greater access to sex selection technologies.

The latest survey also shows a narrowing of the gap between the two as urban areas have shown higher improvement than rural areas.

Despite the fall in SRB in states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Odisha, the overall sex ratio in these states improved, most likely because of a rise in female life expectancy in these states. Huge improvement in India’s overall sex ratio indicates that along with improvement in SRB in many of the large states, female life expectancy too is likely to have improved across all states.

2018

Rema Nagarajan, Rural India’s sex ratio worsens as access to selection tech widens, September 19, 2020: The Times of India

The Sex ratio in India in 2018.
From: Rema Nagarajan, Rural India’s sex ratio worsens as access to selection tech widens, September 19, 2020: The Times of India

The Sex ratio in India in 2018, in the states and in rural and urban areas.
From: Rema Nagarajan, Rural India’s sex ratio worsens as access to selection tech widens, September 19, 2020: The Times of India

While rural areas in the country continue to have higher sex ratios at birth (SRB) than urban ones, as many as 10 of the 22 larger states bucked this pattern in 2018, shows data from the Civil Registration System annual report for that year.

Overall in India, the sex ratio — the number of female births for every 1,000 male births — was 924 for rural areas and 918 for urban ones. This has been the case for a long time now, with greater access to sex-selection technologies and services to abort female fetuses being seen as the primary reason.

However, in Tamil Nadu, the urban SRB was 939 compared to just 901 for rural births, recording the biggest gap of 38 points. In Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, too, the urban ratio gap was over 30 points. Similar was the case with Maharashtra, Assam, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, but the margin was less.

Rural-urban SRB gap biggest in Bengal

There are still some states where the rural sex ratios at birth (SRB) is much higher than the urban, with the biggest gap in West Bengal, where it is 984 in rural areas as against 930 in urban. This is followed by Jharkhand, J&K, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and UP. In Bihar, Punjab and Kerala, the gap is much smaller. “The gap between rural and urban SRB was already shrinking between 2001 and 2011. This is bound to happen with accessibility to sex-selection technologies in rural areas. Now, ultrasound machines are brought to the doorstep in mobile vans, mostly by quacks,” explained gender scholar Bijayalakshmi Nanda, who has been researching the poor sex ratio in India.

Nanda added that there was a need to ensure that the push for smaller families did not come at the cost of girls. While campaigns like Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao had helped improve attitudes towards girls’ education, a significant dent has not been made on the perception that they are a liability, she said.

Sabu George, an activist who has worked on the issue of poor sex ratio in India for decades, also felt that increasing access to technology for sex determination in villages, coupled with anti-girl child feelings in rural areas, could account for the lower rural numbers. However, he cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from the data coming in from states such as UP and Bihar, as there appeared to be wide discrepancies compared to the 2017 data. For instance, the ratio in Azamgarh jumped from 957 in 2017 to 1,213 in 2018 while that of urban Meerut rose from 813 to 970.

“How is that even plausible? Earlier, such data would be sent back for verification or the district would be left out, which would put pressure on the states to ensure proper reporting. If any garbage that states send is accepted, integrity of the data is undermined,” George said.

2019

Rema Nagarajan, June 18, 2021: The Times of India

Sex Ratio in India, trends, state-wise, 2017-19
From: Rema Nagarajan, June 18, 2021: The Times of India

Sex Ratio at birth (SRB) for larger states, 2017-19
From: Rema Nagarajan, June 18, 2021: The Times of India

Data on birth and death registrations in 2019 reveals a mixed picture as far as sex ratio at birth (SRB) is concerned. The good news is that, unlike in the past, none of the states or union territories for which data is available recorded an SRB – number of girls born for every 1,000 boys born – of less than 900. The bad news is that many recorded lower ratios than in 2018 or 2017.

As most states with a low SRB in previous years have shown improvement, there seems to be a convergence towards a middling level. Assam is one of the few states where an already low ratio (921 in 2017) has fallen steeply to 903 in 2019. The data is from the annual report of the Civil Registration System for 2019.

Despite steep fall, Arunachal has highest sex ratio at 1,024

Though tribal communities have traditionally had better sex ratios than the rest, Chhattisgarh, a tribal state, has recorded the highest fall in SRB, from 968 in 2017 to 931 in 2019. In the same period, among larger states, Telangana has recorded the biggest improvement, from 9 15 to 953, followed by Uttarakhand, where the SRB went from 929 to 960.

The World Health Organization estimates that the natural sex ratio at birth is about 952 females to every 1,000 males. There are six states, including three from the northeast, where the SRB is higher than 952. Arunachal Pradesh had the highest ratio of 1,024 — though this was a steep fall from 1,047 — followed by Nagaland and Mizoram, which recorded 1,001 and 975 respectively, a significant improvement from 948 and 964 in 2017. In Kerala, though the SRB was still a high 960, it has worsened from 965 in 2017. Similarly, in Himachal Pradesh, it has been steadily worsening and is now 918.

Punjab and Chandigarh, notorious for sex selective abortions, showed significant improvement as did Odisha, where it went up from 930 to 947. Data for Delhi was not available for 2019, though it showed an improvement between 2017 and 2018.

CRS annual reports till 2016 reported SRB based on all birth registrations during the year. This tended to distort the picture because of births that had taken place in previous years but had been recorded later. As a result, the SRB is now calculated only after excluding births registered more than a year after the event.

2018-20

Shivani Azad, Sep 26, 2022: The Times of India

Dehradun: Uttarakhand’s sex ratio (number of females per 1,000 males) at birth was found to be the worst in the country at 844, and Kerala’s the best, at 974, according to the Sample Registration System Statistical Report 2020. 
 The report, released by the Registrar General of India (RGI) on September 22, stated that the country’s overall sex ratio at birth had gone up by three points to 907 in 2018-20 from 904 in (the partly overlapping period of) 2017-19. It was 907 in rural areas and 910 in urban areas. 
The ratio is possibly indicative of the number of pre-natal sex determinations and female foeticide cases. 
Uttarakhand’s sex ratio, meanwhile, dwindled four points as it had stood at 848 in the last RGI report published for the 2017-2019 period. 
 The 2020 report stated, “In rural areas, the highest and the lowest sex ratio at birth were in the states of Kerala (973) and Uttarakhand (853), respectively. The sex ratio at birth in urban areas varied from 975 in Kerala to 821 in Uttarakhand. ” The sex ratio at birth in the hill state had stood at 850 in 2014-16, 841 in 2015-17, 840 in 2016-18, 848 in 2017-2019, and 844 in 2018 -2020. Some of these periods are overlapping.

The sex ratio in rural Uttarakhand slid nine points to 853 from 862 in 2017-19. This was still a better performance than urban Uttarakhand, which recorded a sex ratio as low as 832 in 2013-15, one of the lowest in the country. It dwindled to 816 in 2014-16 and has partially recovered to 821 in 2018-20. Efforts to contact state government officials for their response to the report did not yield results.

According to the report, Delhi had a sex ratio of 860, followed by Haryana (870), Maharashtra (876), Gujarat (877), and Telangana (892). Out of these, Haryana, which is infamous for female foeticide cases, recorded a rural sex ratio of 868 and an urban sex ratio of 874.

The founder of Doon-based NGO, ‘Samadhan’, Renu D Singh, analysing the reasons behind the skewed sex ratio at birth in Uttarakhand, said, “Five generations have passed but 70% of women still do not have any access to family wealth, higher education, and health resources. Women are still being passively conditioned within their own families to accept themselves as ‘second-class citizens’. The power to make decisions, speak out without fear, and grow as a responsible productive global citizen has taken a backseat. ”

Incidentally, in June 2021, when Niti Aayog data for that year was released and showed Uttarakhand’s sex ratio to be at 840, the state government had blamed “different calculation parameters” and claimed that the actual figure was 949. A week later, data from the Civil Registration System (CRC) showed that the sex ratio of the state was “a commendable ‘960’, on par with Kerala. ”

2019-20: an improvement

January 26, 2021: The Times of India

Sex ratio up from 918 in 2014-15 to 934 in 2019-20

Huge Uptick In Dists With Poor Ratios

New Delhi:

There has been an improvement of 16 points in sex ratio at birth from 918 girls per 1,000 boys in 2014-15 to 934 girls per 1,000 boys in 2019-20, the ministry of women and child developmnt said.

Attributing the improvement to awareness and sensitisation efforts under the ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ scheme launched in January 2015, the government pointed out that out of 640 districts covered under the scheme, 422 showed improvement in sex ratio at birth (SRB).

The WCD ministry issued the statement to mark the National Girl Child Day.

The Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme was launched by the Centre on January 22 in 2015 at Panipat in Haryana with the objective of bringing behavioural change in the society towards the rights of girl child.

Sharing the SRB data collated by the Health Management Information System, the ministry said that some districts which had very low SRB in 2014-15 have shown huge improvement after implementation of the scheme. Mau (Uttar Pradesh) from 694 (2014-15) to 951 (2019-20); Karnal (Haryana) from 758 (2014-15) to 898 (2019-20); Mahendergarh (Haryana) from 791 (2014-15) to 919 (2019-20); Rewari (Haryana) from 803 (2014-15) to 924 (2019-20); and Patiala (Punjab) from 847 (2014-15) to 933 (2019-20) are some of the districts.

“The measures taken under the scheme have resulted in increased awareness and sensitisation of the masses regarding prevalence of gender bias and role of community in eradicating it,” the ministry said in a statement.

2020

Gurgaon improves, Haryana worsens

Ipsita Pati, February 1, 2021: The Times of India

Haryana health department has released the state’s sex ratio at birth (SRB) data for 2020, revealing that the gap between the number of girls born per 1,000 boys has widened to 922 — a slight dip from 923 recorded in the previous year. However, Gurgaon showed significant improvement as its sex ratio at birth was up 11 points — from 910 in 2019 to 921in 2020.

Having witnessed a considerable and consistent improvement in SRB since 2012, when the ratio stood at 832, last year was a setback for the state that has been notorious for its skewed sex ratio. Out of 22 districts in Haryana, 11 showed a downward trend. Since the launch of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme in 2015, this is the first time that the state has slipped in SRB. In 2015, the figure was 876, which rose to 900 in 2016, followed by 914 in 2017. It remained the same in 2018. The 11 districts that saw a drop in SRB in 2020 include Panchkula, which topped the chart in 2019. The ratio dipped to 939 last year from 963 in the previous year. Ambala, which was at the second spot in SRB chart in 2019 at 959 also slipped to 931 last year. Panipat was at 935 last year, down from 939 in 2019. The worst performing districts in 2020 include Jhajjar at 892 points, Karnal at 900, Narnaul at 902, Jind at 904, Palwal at 910, Faridabad at 915, Hisar at 922 and Yamunanagar at 928.

Meanwhile, officials in Gurgaon attribute the rise in SRB in the city to strict compliance with the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC-PNDT) Act, 1994 and frequent raids conducted by the health department in the past seven months. The number of FIRs registered under the PC-PNDT Act rose 14 times, with the health authorities conducting raids even in other states. According to official figures, 14 cases were registered in 2019-20 as against just one in 2018-19. “So far, we have filed 10 cases under the PC-PNDT Act that are from different states and three that belong to Gurgaon,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, Gurgaon.

Sex ratio at birth

SRB and birth order: 2015-16

Ambika Pandit, March 8, 2021: The Times of India

File:SRB by region, 2015-16.jpg

500px

A study that analysed over 5.5 lakh births between 2005-16 in households interviewed under the National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-16) puts worrying focus on an already skewed sex ratio at birth (SRB) getting worse with the second, third and higher birth orders (a couple’s second, third or more kids).

A research paper in the international journal ‘Studies in Family Planning’ showed that SRB generally increased, ranging from107.5 boys per100 girls for birth order 1 to 112.3 boys per 100 girls for third borns and beyond. The analysis was carried out by researchers from India’s International Institute for Population Sciences and the University of California San Diego’s Centre on Gender Equity and Health.

Sex ratio at birth varies between 103 & 106 males per 100 females

Under normal circumstances, sex ratio at birth (SRB) varies between 103 and 106 male births per 100 female births with the estimated global average value being 105.

Data showed that SRB was well within the normal range when community-level fertility was above 2.8 children per woman (103.7). It jumped to111.9 among mothers in communities where average fertility was 1.5 children per woman or lower. “The research shows that at birth order 3 or higher, increase in mother’s schooling was associated with higher odds of a male birth. Increase in mother’s education was, however, not associated with increased odds of a male birth at birth orders 1 and 2,” said Professor Abhishek Singh, one of the lead researchers from IIPS. So, smaller and wealthier families were more prone to sex selection.

The analysis warned that the factors at work were desire for sons in the absence of a living male child, which could drive families towards illegal practices like sex selection. The researchers analysed differentiation of factors with SRB across birth orders, a key determinant in societies affected by son preference.

Prof Singh said SRB at birth order 1 in India was already outside the biological normal limit (despite recent improvements), and deteriorated further with more births. The study found that SRB in the absence of a surviving male sibling was 111.4, which was far above the biological normal level, and significantly different from SRB in the presence of a surviving male sibling (105.8, which is within normal limits).

“We found that SRB at birth order 1 was responsive to a few socio-economic variables. At the national level, the probability of a male birth was associated with being in the middle and richest wealth quintiles and residing in a lower fertility community,” Prof Singh said. This might mean that better-off households actually used their privilege to access sex selection

Causes

Region, more than faith, dictates gender skew

The Times of India, Aug 26, 2015

Sex ratio, 2011, state and community-wise; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, Aug 26, 2015

The gender skew varies significantly between religious communities with the sex ratio (number of females for every 1,000 males) among Sikhs being as low as 903 and among Christians as high as 1,023, according to Census 2011 data released on Tuesday . The good news is that compared to 2001, the sex ratio has improved in each of India's six largest religious groups, the most impressive improvement being among Muslims (from 936 to 951) and the lowest among Hindus (from 931 to 939).

A look at the state-wise data reveals however that cultural factors seem to have a much larger influence on the sex ratio than religious affiliation. Thus, even among the Christians, the sex ratio in Punjab is 913 and in Haryana 924 while being 1,051 in Kerala.

Similarly, among Hindus, most of the northwestern states have sub-900 sex ratios, in Kerala the ratio is even higher than for Christians at 1,077. Incidentally , the Muslim sex ratio in Kerala is 1,125. It is of course possible that these figures are to some extent also effected by predominantly male migration to the Gulf, but there clearly is a larger social context of sex selection at birth not being as prevalent in the state as in some parts of north India.

Another southern state which has in recent years been able to redress the gender balance to some extent, Tamil Nadu, exhibited a similar trend with sex ratios being in the high 900s or even over 1,000. Similarly, almost every religious group in Chhattisgarh has a higher sex ratio than its all-India average. This is in line with the trend of tribal societies tending to be less gender skewed.

In sharp contrast to this, in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, like in Punjab or Haryana, each religious community has a worse sex ratio than its all-India average. Given the fact that there is a substantial migration of males looking for jobs from these states, the actual gender skew is likely to be even worse than the data suggests.

What is clear, therefore, is that while religion may play some part in determining whether or not sex selection takes place and to what extent it does, the larger cultural mileu of a state or region seems.

Haryana

Progressive Haryana Khaps

India Today, April 20, 2015

Asit Jolly

Haryana's patriarchal hinterland is witnessing the beginnings of a social transformation-the emergence of khap panchayats with a conscience that value women

A rapt audience of women-recently betrothed daughters, young housewives, mothers clutching infants, mothers-in-law, many grandmothers-nodding in unison as a young, recently commissioned woman police officer tells them why it is imperative to send girls to school; why they must resist any attempts to restrict women; why daughters and daughters-in-law must be honoured equally; why honour killings are a thing of the dark ages.

It's not an unusual setting, except that this is happening deep inside the intensely patriarchal Haryanvi hinterland.

The February 19 congregation in Bibipur village, 10 km along the highway from Jind to Bhiwani, was special in many ways. Besides the incredulously astute bunch of women, the menfolk were there too. Alongside Anita Kundu, a young woman from a landless, middle-class family of Uklana in Hisar who landed a job as sub-inspector in Haryana Police after she scaled Mount Everest in May 2012, Captain Mahavir Lohan, chief of Hisar's all-powerful Satrol khap-a caste council speaking for 44 villages-was there, equally vehement against the scourge of female foeticide and 'killing to preserve family honour'. On the day, the fringes of the quaint gathering at Bibipur's rather unique mahila choupal (women's village gathering) were crowded over with young and old members of the Nogama (nine villages) khap, each avidly voluntarily giving up his chair as more and more women walked in.

Located in the centre of Haryana's khapland, the events in Bibipur are significant and very possibly the earliest signs of what could potentially snowball into significant social transformation-khap panchayats with a conscience.

It started back on July 14, 2012 when Bibipur's young sarpanch Sunil Jaglan, 32, the proud father of two daughters, convened a mahapanchayat of 112 khaps representing rural communities across Haryana, Rajasthan, Western Uttar Pradesh and Delhi and inspired them to unanimously endorse a joint resolution demanding capital punishment for female foeticide.

"It wasn't easy," says Ritu, the sarpanch's 29-year-old sister recalling the "discomfiture" of the elders. "They were simply not used to women talking down to them," she recalls. "Jab mai bolne uthi to charcha ka vishey ban gaya (When I got up to address them, it became a topic of discussion)."

But not for long, Jaglan remembers the day: "Women participated without restraint, questioning senior khap leaders, for the first time, without fear." The unshakeable pradhans (leaders) capitulated. Years after the laws of the land proscribed sex-selection, khap elders unanimously concurred to demand that foeticide be equated with murder.

Jaglan says the khap leaders' willingness to endorse a resolution against the age-old preference for male progeny across Jat-predominant communities in northern India was driven by a growing awareness and heightening concern over dangerously skewed adult sex ratios that are set to become even sharper given highly distressing SRB (sex ratio at birth) being reported from scores of villages. Haryana for instance has an average statewide sex ratio of 879 women per 1000 men according to the 2011 Census. But there is a horrific story currently unfolding in the villages.

Data available with the state health department exposes the shocking truth and is perhaps why Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose to launch his flagship 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' campaign from Haryana on January 24, when he fervently exhorted its people "not to kill daughters".

More than half-3,974 out of 7,363 -of the villages in the state reported an SRB (0 to 1 year) below 500 in 2013. These include Gajarpur in Mewat district, Kharal in Jind, Bopur in Kaithal and Suri village in Panchkula where the ratio stood abysmally low between 76 and 143 females per 1000 male births. There are some 2,400 villages including a few small hamlets that failed to report the birth of even a single girl child in 2013.

Ram Niwas, Haryana's additional chief secretary in charge of the state health department, says increasingly skewed sex ratios reflect the hard truth and can no longer be wished away. "It is true. More and more girls are being killed in the womb," he says, warning that the situation, already critical, could in time result in a "virtual collapse of rural Haryanvi society".

Niwas points to the presence of scores of bachelors simply unable to find brides in almost every village. The telling dearth of women consequent to the prevalent practice of foeticide, younger members of the Nogama and Satrol khaps say, becomes even more acute with the gotra or kinship codes enforced strictly by most khap panchayats. According to him the landmark 2005 amendment to the Hindu Succession Act giving daughters an equal share as sons in the inheritance of ancestral property and the consequent familial disputes have only refuelled the preference for male children.

Anil Kumar and Suneel Lamba, young farmers in their mid-20s from Jind, don't see themselves settling down anytime soon. They say "it is almost as difficult finding a bride as it is getting a government job in Haryana". Both men actively participate in khap meetings with the singular aim of nudging more tradition-bound elders into slackening restrictions on marital alliances.

Evidently alive to the problem and encouraged by younger members to ring in change, on April 20, 2014, the Satrol khap voted unanimously to reverse a 650-year-old tradition. For the first time in centuries, the khap leaders proclaimed that they would endorse and support inter-village marriages as well as weddings between castes.

Jaglan, who attended the Satrol panchayat in Hisar as a special invitee, sees the decision as "historic and revolutionary". Significantly, the sarpanch says, "they (leaders of the Satrol khap) also decided to recognise love marriages." According to Lohan, the khap now offers a cash incentive of Rs 21,000 for every inter-caste marriage solemnised within its area. Also responding to long-standing criticism, women are now actively encouraged to participate and speak in khap meetings.

Interestingly, khap leaders are employing historical precedent to demolish what has been viewed as inviolable tradition: Lohan cites an early 1960s instance when Ghasiram Malik, then head of the Malik clan, publicly blessed a marriage between a couple sharing the same gotra. He recalls how the old khap chief had proclaimed that the couple's child would be an "asli Malik". Lohan also narrates a past instance when an old Zaildar of the Satrol khap had openly questioned the practice of marrying daughters in barren and un-irrigated areas outside the highly fertile 44-village collective.

Just weeks after the Satrol khap announced its changes last April, Bhiwani's most prominent Sangwan khap too proclaimed it would bless both inter-caste as well as inter-religion marriages.

But many activists and scholars remain sceptical. D.R. Chaudhry, formerly a teacher at Delhi University, says the changes are "cosmetic and driven essentially by the compulsion of circumstances". "Inka dimaag their basic-anti-lower caste and misogynistic-mindset is unchanged," he says. Even if a trifle grudgingly, Chaudhry however acknowledges the efforts by Jaglan and his colleagues in Bibipur.

Besides the role he played in instigating change in Satrol and other khaps, Sunil Jaglan, who was elected sarpanch of Bibipur in June 2010, has single-mindedly pursued an agenda to include the womenfolk of his village. His move to involve the khaps and get them to endorse a resolution against female foeticide in July 2012 may not have paid off significantly in inspiring wider relaxations on questions of inter-caste and inter-gotra marriages but it is a vital beginning.

At the rural congregation on February 19, incidentally the 50th such event since January 24, 2012, Bibipur's womenfolk were decidedly more vocal than the men. Santosh Devi, whose only estimate of her own age is the memory that she "was already bearing children when Pakistan was formed", cheered the loudest when Jaiwanti Sheokand, one of the speakers and a former IAS officer, declared that "a girl can never go 'bad' by going to school and reading books".

Bibipur's women, many of them casting off the traditional ghunghat (veil), were happily at home with sub-inspector Anita Kundu in her hip-hugging jeans, sneakers and closely cropped hair. "I wish I too had a daughter like you," a woman said to her. Kundu smiled and told her: "Your girl will be exactly like me, just make sure she goes to school."

Statistics on women's education in Haryana are almost as damning as the data on missing girl children. Jaglan says "barely 20 per cent of the school-going girls make it to colleges simply because their parents fear they will be sexually targeted going to or coming back from institutions that are invariably some distance away in cities". The panchayat is currently campaigning hard for the state government to provide 'secure last-mile connectivity' for rural girl students.

In 2014, the Bibipur panchayat adopted a formal resolution giving women complete control over 50 per cent of all cash awards and one-time grants to the village. Jaglan and his friends (the village women included) hope that progressively more and more khap leaders will pay heed and break with dubious traditions.

In the meantime though, this happy hamlet is swimming against the tide in celebrating its women: a gate at the entrance to the village makes a point of welcoming visitors to "Bibipur-the Women's World".

Haryana: villages where girls outnumber boys

Rainwali does Haryana proud — 2,750 girls for 1,000 boys

Sukhbir Siwach,TNN | Aug 11, 2014 The Times of India

Rainwali

According to latest figures of the state health department, child sex ratio in the hamlet, Rainwali, is 2,750 girls against 1,000 boys, something unheard of in Haryana.

Haryana, known for its dubious distinction of having the worst child sex ratio in the country, has reasons to cheer about a small village in Fatehabad district.

According to latest figures of the state health department, child sex ratio in the hamlet, Rainwali, is 2,750 girls against 1,000 boys, something unheard of in Haryana. As per 2011 census, Haryana's child sex ratio was just 834 girls for 1,000 boys in 0-6 age group -- worst in the country.

Rainwali, located near Punjab border, has around 1,800 inhabitants, with a significant number of residents belonging to dalit backward classes.

Village sarpanch Gurkirat Singh, who is unaware of the development, gives credit to authorities for improvement in sex ratio. "No doctor here wants to take risk...They are very careful about the ultrasound tests also. They conduct ultrasound test only after getting the application counter-signed by village sarpanch," he said.

"We love our daughters like our sons," said Singh, who has won all elections for village sarpanch post since 1982, barring one.

Khan Mohammad

Another small village, Khan Mohammad, dominated by people of backward classes, has secured second place in the district where the child sex ratio is 2,000 girls for 1,000 boys.

They have formed special teams to check ultrasound centres to avoid sex determination," he added.

Top ten villages of Haryana

Name of Village/ Number of girls for 1000 boys

Rainwali (Fatehabad) -- 2750*

Khan Mohammad (Fatehabad) - 2000

Lotni (Kurukshetra) - 1909

Chuharpur (Yamunanagar) - 1818

Ajijpur Kalan (Yamunanagar)-1750

Samlehri (Ambala) - 1444

Muradpur Takena (Rohtak) -1428

Kot (Palwal) -1424

Dhos (Kaithal) - 1400

Baroli (Faridabad) - 1375

Child sex ratio crosses 900 in 2015

The Times of India, Jan 17 2016

1st time in 10 yrs, Haryana child sex ratio crosses 900  Haryana's child sex ratio (0-6 age group) crossed the 900 mark, for the first time in 10 years, in December 2015. This is a major jump since 2011, when census figures revealed the state had the worst sex ratio in the country -834. Sirsa topped the table with 999 girls per 1,000 boys in the state infamous for female feticide. Officials said 12 districts have recorded gender ratio of above 900.Panchkula has registered a sex ratio of 961 followed by Karnal (959), Fatehabad (952), Gurgaon (946), Sonipat (942), Jind (940), Rewari (931), Mewat (923), Bhiwani, Mahendragarh (912) and Hisar (906). The state overall recorded a sex ratio of 903.

Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar credited the success to the state's multi-pronged strategy under `Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' campaign. “We have set a target to achieve a sex ratio above 950 within the next six months for the entire state,“ Khattar said while referring to Jhajjar that recorded the lowest sex ratio.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the `Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' programme in Panipat on January 22, 2015.

Haryana health minister Anil Vij said the government had announced an award of Rs 1 lakh for each informer giving leads about illegal sex determination tests and termination of pregnancies. He said the drive helped counter female feticide. “We have awarded 17 people whose information has yielded results,“ he said.

Haryana's skewed sex ratio has made it difficult for its young men to find brides, many of whom have increasingly been brought in from places like Bihar, UP and Nepal. Sustained efforts like `Selfie with daughter' campaign started in Jind's Bibipur village via Whatsapp too has had an impact. Even PM Modi acknowledged it in his radio programme.

2016, 17: were the numbers inflated?

Chetna Choudhry, Haryana districts inflating girl child stats, finds audit , May 13, 2017: The Times of India

Sex ratio and child sex ratio, Haryana in particular and India in general, 1991-2011; Chetna Choudhry, Haryana districts inflating girl child stats, finds audit , May 13, 2017: The Times of India

In 2016, Haryana's sex ratio (the number of girls per 1,000 boys) touched 900. In the first quarter of 2017, it galloped to 935. The number for March 2017 was still higher, 950.

To put these numbers in perspective, the national sex ratio for children in the 2011 Census was 919. In Haryana, the number stood at 834.

There is now suspicion that the remarkable surge in sex ratio could be due to dubious numbers.

The state's claim of having made rapid strides in correcting its gender imbalance (India's worst, till recently) faces probing questions after an audit of figures reported by eight of 10 dis tricts in the first quarter of this year found that girl child numbers were misreported. In some cases, they were in flated. In others, newborn girls were registered on priority in the quarter under review while male children were registered in the next quarter to manipulate the final outcome. The audit was started by the `Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' campaign team after it got suspicious of some of these “remarkable“ numbers.

The audit, which began in April, found that Panipat, which ranked second in the January-March list with a sex ratio of 1,007 (yes, more girls than boys) had overshot the actual number by 135. The revised number stands at 872.Narnaul, which had come third, had reported the birth of 968 girls. The audit team found the correct number to be 841. Similarly , Jhajjar (949) is now down to 845, Sonipat (948) stands corrected to 870, Kaithal (939) is now 890 and Faridabad (926) has been revisedto 872.

Hisar might have seen a clerical error. Its reported ratio of 933 has been amended to 932. Gurgaon stands out in this list for underreporting, the sex ratio here (891) has increased to 898 after the audit.

Sources said the one of the major reasons for misreporting of figures was district-level staff were instructed to ensure all the girls born were registered immediately . “On priority , staff registered all girls born, which delayed the registration of boys. This reflected in the sex ratio and it appeared there has been a tremendous improvement. But it would have eventually been corrected because the boys too are being registered, although a little late,“ said a senior official of the health department, who did not wish to be named.

Rakesh Gupta, additional principal secretary to the CM and state coordinator for Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, said, “ At any given point, there are 45,000 pregnant women in the state on an average. Some officials have shown a tendency to make up data and we are conscious the data should be accurate. By the end of the year, all data will be accurately compiled and we are expecting the overall sex ratio to remain around 935 to 950 this year.“

The districts that reported inflated numbers don't believe the monthly or quarterly figures are important. “These figures should not be given a lot of importance because they fluctuate a lot,“ said R C Bidhan, deputy commissioner, Jhajjar. “We should focus on annual data and that has been improving for the district as well as the state. Two years ago, Jhajjar's sex ratio was 760. It reached 884 last year,“he added.

Vinay Singh, deputy commissioner of Jind that also saw its reported number (889) corrected to 865, said, “Around 98% children born in district are registered along with Aadhar card and it is unlikely there can be a mistake. However, we will check with the civil surgeon and take necessary action if there is a discrepancy .“

The ten districts audited so far are Panipat, Narnaul, Jhajjar, Sonipat, Kaithal, Hisar, Sirsa, Faridabad, Gurgaon and Jind.

2017: Ratio improves

Asit Jolly , Girl Power in Jatland “India Today” 15/5/2017

Amid several tense weeks during which the Jat quota agitation threatened to erupt all over again, there's finally a real reason to rejoice in Haryana - the birth of more girls. For the first time in the five decades the state has existed with the ignominy of the lowest sex ratios in the country, March 2017 historically recorded the birth of 950 girls for every 1,000 boys, the highest ever.

Haryana had seen an appalling average sex ratio at birth (SRB) of just 762 till 2005-2006, which had improved only marginally by the time Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched his flagship 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' scheme from Panipat in 2015.

Given that backdrop, the birth of 17,627 girls against 18,555 boys this March really seemed like a staggering achievement. Believe it or not, two districts-Narnaul and Palwal-had more female births than males. Of the 1,021 babies born in Narnaul, 573 were girls. The news from Palwal was even better-1,003 girls against 824 boys.

The turnaround, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar says, has been achieved through strict enforcement of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, 1994, and the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971, alongside sensitisation and awareness initiatives centred on the girl child.

CM Khattar says some 400-odd FIRs have been filed against offenders involved in sex selection and foeticide so far. "More than 80 cases," he says, were registered following inter-state investigations of criminals and clinics in neighbouring Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Punjab.

Khattar's crackdown used decoys to target unscrupulous clinics as well as fake agents offering sex selection drugs. The state health authorities also cracked down on imported (mainly Chinese) sex determination and MTP kits sold by unauthorised practitioners and paramedics. Scores of cases have been registered, and the Haryana government has also succeeded in securing convictions in 10, officials said.

Rakesh Gupta, additional principal secretary in the CM's office, says much of the success is owed to establishing SOPs (standard operating procedures) and guidelines to tackle PCPNDT and MTP cases. This includes mandatory provisions to train police officers, public prosecutors and state health officials.

2017: Significant improvement

The sex ratio in:
The districts of Haryana in 2016; and
in Gurgaon, 2010-17.
From: Chetna Choudhry, Gurgaon now has 901 women per 1,000 men — best sex ratio in 10 yrs, January 6, 2018: The Times of India

See graphic:

The sex ratio in:
The districts of Haryana in 2016; and
in Gurgaon, 2010-17

2017: highest-ever sex ratio

Haryana records its highest-ever sex ratio, January 14, 2018: The Times of India

After suffering the ignominy of having the poorest child sex ratio in the country, the Haryana government has now claimed to have logged its highest ever sex ratio of 914 girls per 1,000 boys in 2017. The ratio was 900 girls per 1,000 boys in 2016 and even lower at 876 girls per 1000 boys in 2015.

The data released by the state government on Saturday shows that out of the 5,09,290 (5.09 lakh) children born in the state from January to December 2017, 2,66,064 were boys and 2,43,226 were girls. According to this data, there has been an increaseof 43 points.

While 17 districts achieved the ratio of 900 or more, no district was below 880 in 2017. Panipat with a ratio of 945 tops the list, followed by Yamunanagar with

943. Experts say that a number close to 950 is considered ideal from the perspective of public health. In 2011, Mohindergarh, Rewari, Sonipat and Jhajjar districts had a child sex ratio of below 800 but have shown a marked improvement ever since.

According to chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, this dramatic improvement in the sex ratio — since the launch of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign by PM Narendra Modi from Panipat in 2015 — is an outcome of the concerted efforts made by the state government. “The gains will most certainly show up in the 2021 census,” Khattar added.

“The government embarked on a multi-pronged drive to improve the skewed sex ratio by conducting raids on illegal ultrasound centres and decoy-trapping of ultrasound institutes,” said a senior government official, adding that around 550 FIRs were registered under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) and Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act against the offenders after the raids.

Sleuths also cracked several casesof abortion kitsbeing sold illegally by some medical practitioners.

2017: 38 point improvement over 2015

Ambika Pandit, Haryana claims improvement in sex ratio at birth, May 5, 2018: The Times of India

Govt Credits ‘Beti Bachao’ Programmes

Haryana’s embarrassingly skewed sex ratio at birth seems to be showing signs of improvement, with the administration claiming a jump of 38 points between 2015 and December 2017.

While the 2011 census put Haryana’s sex ratio at birth (SRB) at a poor 830 girls per 1,000 boys, in 2017, the SRB, as per chief registrar of births and deaths, stood at 914 girls per 1,000 boys.

The data was presented at a national consultation organised by the women and child development ministry on the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) programme here.

BBBP was launched in 2015 by PM Narendra Modi from Panipat in Haryana. The data for Panipat shows SRB increased from 833:1000 in 2011 to 892:1000 in 2015. It went up further to 893:1000 in 2016 and 945:1000 in 2017.

According to data trend shared at the conference, SRB in Haryana rose from 876:1,000 in 2015 to 902:1,000 in 2016 and then went up further to 914:1000 in 2017.

District wise break-up reflect trends that have some extremes like it is claimed that Yamunanagar’s SRB has gone up by 75 points to 943:1,000 in 2017 from 2015 .

While Haryana administration attributes the highs to the many measures it claims to have taken under BBBP around awareness building and community participation, the decline in Mewat is under scrutiny, officials said.

2017, 2018: ratio at birth rises to 929

Ambika Pandit, June 20, 2019: The Times of India

Haryana’s sex ratio at birth (SRB) continues to show a significant rise with the latest update from the state government reflecting a ratio of 929 girls per 1000 boys in the month of April. From the abysmally low ratio sex ratio of 830 girls per 1,000 boys in the 2011 Census, the state recorded an annual SRB of 914 girls per 1000 boys in both 2017 and 2018.

The state government’s data shows that the SRB in Haryana rose from 876:1,000 in 2015 to 902:1,000 in 2016 and there has been no looking back since then. Monthly data for 2019 shows that the SRB in January was 933 girls per 1,000 boys followed by 915:1,000 in February, 918:1,000 in March and 929:1,000 in April. The data for May and June is yet to come. The cumulative SRB calculated by the state from January to May is calculated to be at 924:1,000. CM Madan Lal Khattar’s Twitter handle has highlighting SRB of 933:1,000 in January and comparing it with the annual SRB of 871:1,000 in December 2014.

2018: the ten worst districts

Vishakha Chaman, Sep 8, 2019: The Times of India

2018: the ten worst districts
From: Vishakha Chaman, Sep 8, 2019: The Times of India

2018: The Sex Ratio in Gurgaon
From: Vishakha Chaman, Sep 8, 2019: The Times of India

While they speak convincingly about steps being taken to empower the girl child, teachers at two co-educational schools in the village known for the scenic Damdama Lake only ask the girls to get water for guests. Damdama was among 10 villages in Gurgaon — the nerve centre of successful, progressive and modern Haryana — with appallingly low sex ratios at birth in 2018. Beyond the schools’ boundary walls, houses that don’t bear hand prints on their outer walls are the ones that haven’t been “blessed” with a boy. Haryana, which had the worst sex ratio in the 2011 Census, launched the Beti Bachao campaign in 2015 to make a course correction and has been making steady progress. But there are plenty of reasons why it can’t afford to get carried away by recent success as the roots of patriarchy run deep. Vishakha Chaman reports.

Sixteen kilometres to the south-west of Cyber Hub, Garauli Khurd in Gurgaon has houses with hands painted on them in red and yellow. The hand impression means a house has at least one male child, a mark of celebration. As for the houses that don’t, distinctly fewer in number, Shakuntala Devi, a resident, says: “Ladkiyan to doosra ghar ka kooda hove (girls are the waste of other families).”

Sex ratio at birth in Haryana was 924 in 2018, a figure the state government sees as an outcome of its sustained Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign. The same year, there were 10 villages in Gurgaon that reported a much lower sex ratio, the lowest being 489, shows health department data. Of these, the biggest villages by population, Khandsa (29,896) and Badshapur (11,132), have sex ratios as low as 774 and 777, respectively. The rest, with lower sex ratios, have a population ranging from 3,000 to 6,000. In the first six months of 2019, the average for Gurgaon district has fallen from 901 last year to 897.

At Garauli Khurd in Sector 37, the sex ratio was 667 in 2018. “Nobody wants a daughter here. The government is putting advertisements in TV and newspapers but the mindset of villagers has hardly changed,” says Sanjeet Kumar, who has a daughter and two sons.

Garauli Khurd is among the 10 villages with the lowest sex ratio in Gurgaon. Damdama, an hour from Garauli Khurd, is another with a sex ratio of 609. “Even today, when a girl is born, she is welcomed with abuses. Who wants a daughter? You have to spend a lot of money on her marriage. If you fail to fulfil the dowry demands, your daughter is sent back,” says Sarbati, 60, a resident of Damdama.

The village with the eponymous lake has only two government schools—one for the primary sections and a middle school. Villagers share that since only boys are sent to private schools, the absence of a higher secondary school means girls don’t even finish school. “The nearest higher secondary government school is around 1.5km from here and nobody sends their daughters because of security reasons. This is why a majority of the girls have studied only till Class VIII. What employment will they get?” asks 25-year-old Neetu, emphasising how girls and boys are not treated as equals. And Krishna, another Damdama resident, is candid enough to admit that some men undergo sterilisation procedures after the birth of a boy to avoid the risk of having a girl child. At the schools, teachers refuse to believe the abysmal sex ratio, and if they do, they don’t perceive it as a problem. Satish Kumar, a Hindi teacher at the middle school, says girls have been doing well in sports and have won medals in archery at national competitions this year.

However, the number of girl students in Damdama’s only primary school has gone down from 120 in 2016 to 90 in 2019, while the enrolment of boys has gone up marginally in the same period (86-90). In both schools, it was the girl students who the teachers called to get water for this correspondent during the visit. Kadarpur, located 16km south of Cyber Hub, has a sex ratio only slightly better than Damdama’s —

610. There is one government school in the village where children can study till Class XII. Though the village has fewer girls than boys, the school has a higher number of female students — 357 out of the total 690 — in its current session. “Boys here have no interest in studying and girls outshine them,” says Poonam Bishnoi, the principal. A villager says boys are enrolled in school only so that they can get married. “These days, people ask how much a boy has studied,” she adds.

About 5km from Hero Honda Chowk on the Gurgaon-Jaipur highway, Khandsa village tells the same story. An employee at a government office in Khandsa refuses to believe the sex ratio is an unhealthy 774. Why? Because “the village has 90 accounts of girls under 10 years for the Sukanya Samridhi scheme”. The anganwadi centre in the village has a chart where the sex ratio column has been left blank.

On September 4, a doctor, Rajeev Bhatia, was caught by a health department team conducting ultrasound of patients without registration at a centre in Gurgaon. He was sent to police remand for two days under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994 (PC-PNDT) that makes pre-natal sex screening and female foeticide punishable offences. Probe revealed that he ran one more centre in the city and another in Jhajjar. Also, this was not the first time he was taken into custody for the crime and had been caught in the act twice before.

To tackle gender discrimination and related problems, the women and child development (WCD) department of Gurgaon has received a grant of Rs 25 lakh for its Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao programme for the 2019-20 fiscal. Of this, Rs 2 lakh will be allocated to the health department to carry out raids on illegal sex determination centres in villages across the district.

Social activist Rishi Kant has gathered from locals that sex determination centres continue to operate clandestinely in the city. “There has been no major crackdown on such centres. It is a major reason behind the low sex ratio in Gurgaon’s villages. Every villager knows where these illegal centres operate. We need to activate intelligence in the villages. Panchayats should keep a check,” he says.

Among government officers, opinion is divided on how the gender tests are being done, though there is general agreement that people have found a way and that needs to be blocked. Chief medical officer Dr Jaswant Singh Punia admits there is a greater possibility of a sex-determination centre being run around the villages with low sex ratio. “Our focus is on improving sex ratio and we are going to investigate this further,” he says.

Officials in the health department says women are being taken to other districts for sex determination tests. Dr Amandeep Chauhan, drug control officer and member of the PC-PNDT raiding committee, says eight cases of medical termination of pregnancy and violation of pre-natal gender screening have been detected in Gurgaon this year. “Sex determination centres are not running in Gurgaon. But there have been cases where women have been taken to another state for sex determination. In one such case, a woman from Gurgaon was taken to Roorkee. Our team had gone to Roorkee to raid that centre,” says Chauhan, adding Gurgaon’s improvement from a sex ratio of 842 in 2014 to nearly 900 now cannot be overlooked.

While experts feel the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao programme should do more than writing slogans on public boards, and go on to penalise villages that have failed to improve sex ratio, Sunaina Khatri, the district programme officer of the women and child development department (that anchors the project) hints at the thin population of these villages playing a role. “These 10 villages are on our radar. Pregnant women will be registered in the anganwadi centres so that we can track them. If they abort the child within three months, there are chances that it could be because of sex determination,” says Khatri.

The crisis boils down to the mindset and many are of the opinion that some of the government policies, which were rolled out to change this, have backfired. “The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, stipulated that a daughter would be a ‘coparcener’ and will have equal rights to ancestral property. But instead of empowering women, it had an adverse effect. Families don’t want daughters because they demand their share in property,” says Prof Rajesh Gill, a sociology professor at Panjab Universty, who has been conducting field visits in Haryana. During these visits, she found that a majority of land owners has only one male child. 

Jharkhand and Rajasthan

Child sex ratio: J’khand, Raj show maximum improvement

But about 84 of the 284 districts recorded a fall, even if in 31 of them the fall was marginal. The fall in sex ratio in the 0-4 age group is more widespread, with 127 districts exhibiting this trend,46 of them showing a significant drop. The census office has been conducting an annual health survey in nine states – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Assam. A baseline survey conducted in 2007-09 has been followed up by similar ones in 2010 and 2011. Jharkhand, which had a relatively better sex ratio to begin with, and Rajasthan, which figured at the bottom of the pile, have shown the greatest improvement in both sex ratio at birth (SRB) and the 0-4 sex ratio.

States that started off with high sex ratio in both categories,such as Chhattisgarh and Assam, have recorded the biggest declines in 0-4 category along with Bihar and Odisha.

In UP, 30% of the districts recorded a fall in the 0-4 age group.In Chhattisgarh,the ratio fell in 13 out of 16 districts. As a result, the state’s 0-4 sex ratio fell from 978 to 965.

In Bihar, 21 of 37 districts registered a decline in 0-4 sex ratio.In Orissa,the0-4sex ratio declined in 21 outof 30districts. Uttarakhand had the worst sex ratio among these nine states to start with and despite showing some improvement, it continues to be the worst.

Jhunjhunu: from worst sex ratio to the best/ 2018

Ambika Pandit, March 4, 2018: The Times of India

The 2011 census brought Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan the ignominy of being the district with the lowest sex ratio of 837 girls per 1,000 boys among 33 districts of the state. Seven years on, the district is being hailed as a model with the sex ratio at birth (SRB) touching an impressive 955 girls per 1,000 boys.

It is from here that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the pan-India expansion of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) programme to cover all 640 districts on Women’s Day on March 8. He will also launch the National Nutrition Mission from here.

The choice of state for the launch is significant in view of the assembly polls slated later this year in Rajasthan. Once seen as the worst district on account of its poor sex ratio, Jhunjhunu’s administration attributes the change to a focussed crackdown on ultrasound centres carrying out prenatal sex determination and grassroots interventions at the community level to steer change in mindsets.

Going by the data SRB has been a key focus area for the last few years in particular for Jhunjhunu. In 2014, for the period January to December SRB was 880 girls per 1,000 boys. This rose to 901:1000 in 2015. Incidentally, BBBP was launched in 2015 which further reinforced the district’s efforts that had taken off under project Shakti in 2014.

SRB further rose to 933 in 2016 and in December 2017 the SRB was recorded at 955:1,000. Jhunjhunu’s performance has won may accolades from the ministry of women and child development over the last two years. It was among the ten districts that were awarded on the National Girl Child Day 2016 by the ministry for outstanding performance in implementing BBBP.

It was also awarded with Nari Shakti Puruskar last year for effective community engagement. Some of the grassroots efforts under BBBP here include weekly jan sunwai (public hearing) on Tuesday where officers come together at night and discuss the issue of child sex ratio. This issue is also mandatory on Gram Panchayat meetings agenda. On Fridays, even women groups come together to discuss this.

Special focus has been put on 20 villages that have registered lowest child sex ratio and volunteers have been asked to prepare a “grievance redressal register” in this regard. An important initiative has been around celebrating the birth of girl child. In a largely patriarchal social setup around 1247 mothers and girl child have been facilitated by the district administration.

In a move to encourage girls, the district in 2016 chose two high performing girl students from financially weak backgrounds and made them the collector of the district for a day as a symbolic gesture. “These activities are a big source of motivation,” he said. Girl students are also taken on visits to government offices as part of their educational trip to understand the various schemes/programmes of the Centre nd state government.

The BBBP scheme was launched by the PM in January, 2015 at Panipat in Haryana to address the declining child sex ratio. Last year in November, the BJP led NDA government decided to expand BBBP from 161 districts to cover all 640 districts of the country.

Tamil Nadu

1987- 2021

Sabu Mathew George, January 12, 2022: The Times of India

Number of missing female births (in millions) in families with..: 1987-2016
From: Sabu Mathew George, January 7, 2022: The Times of India

Tamil Nadu created history when the late chief minister J Jayalalithaa announced the cradle baby scheme in 1991. The recognition of the practice of female infanticide by Tamil Nadu was unprecedented at a time when other states wouldn’t acknowledge it. Further, the state was the first to make registration of all scan clinics mandatory in 2000, when the DMK was is in power, before the Supreme Court’s judgment on the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act in 2001. However, the sex ratio at birth is declining, indicating a lack of priority by the health department.

Female foeticide and infanticide are severe forms of discrimination against girls. While foeticide is selective abortion of female foetuses following sex determination by ultrasound scan, female infanticide happens immediately after birth. Female infanticide gets occasionally reported by the local media, but sex selection is largely ignored, thus creating the impression that sex selection hardly happens in the state.

Census data has indicated over 2001-2011, female infanticide had considerably reduced as compared to earlier decades. The improvements are evident in the child sex ratio in the worst affected districts of Dharmapuri, Salem, Namakkal and Theni districts. Female foeticide estimates are computed from live birth data. Birth data in the government portal shows persistence of masculine sex ratios in each of the four years, from 2018 to 2021. More than 36 lakh live births were registered during this period in Tamil Nadu and the average sex ratio of registered births is 937 girls per 1,000 boys. Based on the government of India estimation of sex ratio at birth for 2018 and 2019 in their annual reports, for Tamil Nadu, we can presume that the sex ratio at birth is nearly similar, as almost all births recorded are within the age of one year. Thus, about 1. 5% of Tamil Nadu girls were eliminated before birth during 2018-21.

However, it is necessary to highlight that consistently for every year, the sex ratio of reported births by village panchayats is significantly masculine — 904 — unlike other levels of local bodies. This constitutes barely 3% of the births in the state and therefore can hardly bias the estimate of sex selection at the state level. How much of the distortion in birth sex ratios at the village panchayats occurs due to female infanticide cannot be inferred as sub district level classifications of births are not provided. There is geographical heterogeneity in the practices of female infanticide/foeticide at the district level, even in the low sex ratio districts, such as Salem. If the state government would publicly display birth data at every local body level as directed by the Supreme Court in 2017, it would help get a better picture of the situation.

Several demographic analyses of the reproductive history of women obtained from the National Family Health Surveys, first to fourth (births over 1987-2016) provides unique insights into intensification of sex selection in the state. An analysis published in ‘The Lancet’ by Prabhat Jha a few months ago, estimate conditional sex ratio by birth order — missing girls before birth in families of second-born daughters with an elder daughter and those of third-born daughter with two earlier daughters. Disturbingly, about one lakh second-born girls have been eliminated over two decades, 1997-2016. While the numbers of missing third born girls have increased dramatically from 20,000 to 80,000 during 1997-2006 and 2007-2016 respectively; suggesting that more than six lakh medical crimes of sex determination and sex selective abortion have happened. These findings have importance for the present policies to protect girls. The girl child scheme needs to be made more girl-friendly. At present the benefits are only limited to only one or only two girl child families, whose mothers have been sterilised. Given the dramatic fall in fertility rate in Tamil Nadu, the obsession with mothers’ sterilisation needs to be removed. The marginal cost of expanding to all families who give birth to girls will barely result in 7% increase in funds as more than 90% births are first and second order births. Inclusion of higher order births is imperative because these girls are at exceptional risk of being eliminated.

Birth histories from five nationally representative household surveys were used for the Lancet study of 2021. Analysis of 2.1 million birth histories, provided the total number of missing female births according to sex of previous kids, across three decades. Applying the conditional sex ratios from these surveys to national birth totals, the total number of missing female births in India was 13.5 million during 1987-2016, increasing from 3.5 million in 1987-96 to 5.5 million in 2007-16, an increase of 60%. Missing female births among second and third-born children (following earlier daughter or daughters) contributed to more than half the total missing female births

Stopping female foeticide has to be recognised as important as providing family planning services. There are indications that even first-born girls could be at risk of elimination in pregnancy if these medical crimes become legitimised because of indifference of the authorities. Sex selection is increasingly occurring at lower birth orders as the desire for a smaller family combines with the traditional preference for sons. In India, more than 2% of first-born girls were eliminated in 2007-2016 vs 1% in 1997-2006 respectively as per Lancet analysis.

Mandatory registration for pregnancy ultrasound is to ensure that abortions are tracked through the Pregnancy and Infant Cohort Monitoring and Evaluation (Picme) system. There is concern that women who are at high risk of eliminating female foetus may not register their pregnancies. Thus coercion actually results in high-risk pregnant women being abandoned to the unregulated and/or unethical practitioners of foetal sexing and abortion.

Having participated in Government of India’s inspections in TN, I am aware that women can get ultrasound without Picme. The objective of PNDT law to prevent scan misuse is not realised by tracking pregnant women, but by monitoring the clinics doing ultrasound. The state inspection committee with dedicated senior officials including police is a good model for other states to check violations, but hope that Tamil Nadu will supplement with information from audits of ultrasound forms and birth outcomes. Creating deterrence against criminal practice of sex selection is the effective way to restore sex ratios and not targeting pregnant women.

(The writer is a girl child activist and member of National Inspection & Monitoring Committee of the PC-PNDT Act)

Salem: Tamil Nadu

Top Tamil Nadu districts with skewed sex ratio and sex ratio in Salem: 1901-2011; Graphic courtesy: India Today, June 15, 2015

India Today, June 15, 2015

Kavitha Muralidharan

A major industrial zone, Salem is a Haryana inside Tamil Nadu with its skewed sex ratio. Pinning hopes on astrology for sex-selective abortions makes it stranger still.

A dilemma to choose between an unborn girl or boy that has become a part of life for a large percentage of women in Salem, the second worst district in the highly educated state of Tamil Nadu in terms of skewed sex ratio-954 women per 1,000 men as per the 2011 Census. Driven by a cultural preference for the male child, and anxiety over dowry and inheritance of family property in the case of daughters, there is an irony in this unwanted equality: sex-selective abortion cuts across caste, communities (practised by both the poor and the dominant communities of Gounders and Vanniyars, among others, lest their riches go to another household), and the rural-urban divide.

Although illegal diagnostic centres operate on the sly in state capital Chennai, or Dharmapuri-at 946 women per 1,000 men, the district with the worst sex ratio in Tamil Nadu- what makes Salem unique is the wide- spread use of astrology to identify sex.

In Salem, the astrological 'predictions' lead to many first-trimester abortions. In 2012-13, the district had reported more than 3,000 medically terminated pregnancies within 12 weeks of pregnancy, and more than 300 between 12 and 20 weeks. These are completely above board. What's not known is the number of illegal abortions that are done in the second trimester, or between the fourth and sixth month of pregnancy.

There has been no crackdown because astrology is extremely popular in the state, with many heavyweight politicians relying on it. It is also difficult to bring these 'astrologers' to book merely for making predictions.

Good and bad of clampdown

Shadowing the overall picture in the state, Salem has a markedly skewed child sex ratio of 917 girl children against every 1,000 boys in the 0-6 year age bracket compared to the overall sex ratio of 954, as per the 2011 Census-the respective figures for Tamil Nadu are 943 and 996. What this means is simple, and worrisome: the sex ratio will just get worse as these infants grow up. More so for Salem, Tamil Nadu's fifth most populous and a fast developing district, where the figure of 954 is certain to dip by the time the 917 infant girls grow up.

There's a bright tale even in this otherwise morose climate. According to Census figures, the child sex ratio in Salem is up from 851 in 2001. How did this come about? The answer is both simple and complicated. Until even a decade ago, Salem was notorious for infanticide. When an alarmed state government clamped down, people switched to foeticide, says V. Sumathi, who runs the NGO Green Foundation of India in Omalur, near Salem city.

So the clampdown addressed infanticide but energised foeticide. In 1992, J. Jayalalithaa, the then chief minister, announced the Cradle Baby Scheme. It was meant to tackle infanticide.

As part of the scheme, parents could drop unwanted babies-primarily girls-in cradles provided at government homes instead of killing them. Launched in Salem, the scheme was later extended to other districts. To a large extent, this initiative is believed to have helped the jump in child sex ratio in Salem in the decade to 2011.

A. Devaki, a child protection officer in Salem district, says more than 4,000 babies have been saved across the state under the Cradle Baby Scheme, nearly 3,600 of them girls. "Most of them are in school, many studying medicine and engineering," she says. Not that the scheme does not have critics. "How can the government encourage an initiative that allows people to abandon girl children?" asks Chennai-based activist Sheelu Francis. But Devaki has a defence to that: "Imagine, more than 4,000 children could have been killed but for our cradles."

As for the sex-determination tests done illegally, six centres found doing this were closed in Salem last year, say Health Department officials. "We strictly implement the PNDT Act, and give approval for (licence) renewal only when all conditions are met," says Joint Director of Health Services, Salem, N. Vijayalakshmi. But more than a dozen such centres are estimated to be still operating.

Tied in knots

The sex ratio may be getting healthier, albeit too gradually to make much impact, but the effects of the female infanticide and foeticide practised for at least three decades are showing. As a result, even men from the close-knit Gounder community, with a deep-rooted caste pride, have begun looking for brides outside the community-something that would have been frowned upon till recently. To stem the rot, Kongunadu Makkal Desia Katchi (KMDK), a caste-based party in western Tamil Nadu, has begun an awareness campaign. But it will take another decade for the efforts to pay off, admits E.R. Eswaran, KMDK general secretary. Devaraj exudes hope that the next generation of Gounder men can get married within the community.

For that, a bigger movement is required to change social mores. To not only amend the way the men think but to make someone such as Kalairani, from Kadayampatti, wipe out the feeling that it is an insult to give birth to a girl child.