New Delhi: Alarmed at the increasing rate of female foeticides being reported from across the country, the Centre is planning to launch a palna or cradle scheme.
Under the proposed scheme, the Government plans to open a centre in each district where parents can leave their girl children if they do not want to bring them up themselves.
"We want to put a cradle or Palna in every district headquarters. What we are saying to the people is have your children, don't kill them. And if you don't want a girl child, leave her to us," Minister of State for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury told PTI in an interview.
"We will bring up the children. But don't kill them because there really is a crisis situation," she said.
The Women and Child Development Ministry's proposal is to be put in place during the 11th Five Year Plan as part of a slew of measures to fight the menace of female foeticide.
The sex ratio in the country has been recorded as low as 933 females per 1,000 males as per the 2001 census. "It is a matter of international and national shame for us that India with a growth of nine per cent still kills its daughters," the Minister of State for Women and Child Development said.
While the sex ratio in Haryana has been recorded at 861, Punjab is only slightly better with a figure of 876. And the sex ratio in the national capital is the lowest at 821.
Chowdhury said that the practice was spreading to more states. "It's alarming that even liberal states like those in the northeast have taken to disposing of girls," she said.
Chowdhury said through the scheme, the Government would at least ensure that the gene pool is maintained. "We do not have enough girls. As it is, states are importing girls from here and there," she said.
But will the scheme encourage families to abandon their girl children? Chowdhury said, "It doesn't matter. It is better than killing them."
She also said the parents, even if they were abandoning their daughters, were likely to have a change of heart later. "Parents who abandon children do come back and take them back," she said.
Chowdhury said her ministry was also planning to declare one day in the year as "national daughter's day".
The Minister of State for Women and Child Development said the Government was treating the drop in sex ratio as an issue of national emergency and quoted the shocking figure of one crore as the number of girls who have been killed as foetuses in the country in the last two decades.
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