Awareness drive on sex determination, female foeticide
:Rajasthan, known for its skewed sex ration, will hold an awareness drive on Friday where 700 volunteers, known as Daughters are Precious (DAP) rakshaks, will talk about the negative effects of sex determination and female foeticide, at 700 educational institutions across the state.
As per 2011 Census, the child sex ratio in Rajasthan was 888 per 1000 boys, which has increased to 929 between January 1 2014 and December 31, 2015.
National Health Mission chief Naveen Jain on Thursday, addressing a press conference said the health department is successfully implementing the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act and they have conducted many decoy operations.
Despite this, there are many districts where sex determination is still taking place and the department does not have any information.
“Last year, the department felt that by enforcing the PCPNDT Act, sex determination and female foeticide could be controlled to a limited extent. Higher success can be achieved by changing the mentality of people by starting an awareness campaign.”
The DAP programme was launched on September 23, 2016, by the Centre, he said.
“Under the programme, volunteers interacted with students at universities, colleges, higher secondary schools along with medical, technical, nursing and management institutions.”
Jain further added that in the last 14 months, DAP programmes were organised in many institutions in 33 districts of the state.
In October, it was decided that the message should be carried to the youth and such interactions should be organised frequently so the concept of DAP rakshak was planned, he said.
“On November 4, a programme was organised to train volunteers and 685 people attended the event...Initially, the awareness dialogue was to be organised at 300 places, but with the overwhelming response, now it will be organised at 700 institutions by 700 DAP rakshaks (volunteers) and they will address more than 1.50 lakh youth,” Jain said.
JAIPUR