M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Feb 10: Palamu is struggling with the gender gap which has become a matter of concern. Pegged at 926 women per 1,000 males in 2020 -21, it is now 948 women per 1,000 males.
According to the 2011 – 21 census, the women population was at 9,33,567 out of the total population of 19,39,269 in Palamu. An official said that the enrolment of eligible girls in Palamu is satisfactory even though it is not heart-warming.
Moreover, there is an advisory committee for the pre-conception and pre-natal diagnostic technique act which comes once or twice a year to examine the growth in the population of women.
This correspondent spoke about female foeticide to one of the members of the advisory committee Dr Archana Tiwary, a popular gynaecologist in the Medinirai medical college hospital in Daltonganj.
“The labour-class women are not bothered about which gender is growing in their embryo. It is only the sophisticated one who tries to know the sex of the unborn and they get disappointed,” she said.
She further added, “I have this unflinching conviction that lower status women are more indulged in bridging the struggle related to the gender gap between male and female in Palamu. This is as if they already have 3 girls; the fourth is unacceptable.”
She added that it is the affluent women who want to know more about the sex of the unborn.
However, there is a provision of cash for the detection of malpractice in ultrasonography by a ‘decoy agent’ to expose any ultrasound clinics indulging in practices where sex disclosure of the unborn is a severely punishable offence.
