Daijiworld Media Network – Mangaluru (MS)

Mangaluru, Oct 9:  Sex ratio is on the decline in 20 districts of the state. Nine districts have recorded moderate ratio. This might create huge issues in society in future and government needs to urgently take corrective measures to stem this decline.

Earlier, government used to conduct census to know the ratio between men and women. However, now the birth and death details are being entered into E-Janma portal. In this year’s count, a huge difference in sex ratio has been noted in 20 districts of Karnataka.

According to statistics provided by the health department, steep decline in sex ratio is seen in Chikkaballapur, Bagalkote, Kalaburagi and Bidar districts. However, according to the officials, this is due to the migration of people to other districts and states. In addition, determination of sex of the child in diagnostic and scanning centres is also one of the reason.

There are 3,092 scanning centres in the state. More than 1,000 applications are pending for verification with the health department to start new scanning centres. The vigilance team of the health department paid a surprise visit to only 14% of the scanning centres in 2022.

According to the census of 2011, there was no major difference in the ratio between males and females in Karnataka. Health department officials say that the then state government had announced a financial aid during the first girl child birth under Bhagyalaxmi scheme. This was the reason for the female sex ratio being stable at that time.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has called a meeting of health department officials and has asked concerned officials to make surprise visits to scanning centres at least once in three months.

In Chikkaballapur, there were 952 females for every 1000 males in 2001, this has fallen to 868 in 2022. Similarly, in Bagalkote the ratio has fallen from 940 to 886 while in Kalaburagi it has fallen from 931 to 888 and in Bidar from 941 to 898.