In a first for Delhi, more girls than boys born
New Delhi: The national capital has, for the first time ever, recorded a positive sex ratio. More girls than boys were born in Delhi in 2008, taking the ratio to 1,004 girls for every 1,000 boys.
Senior officials were quick to credit the numbers to the Delhi governments Ladli schemewhich provides parents incentives throughout the girls education.
In 2007, Delhis sex ratio at birth stood at 848 girls per 1,000 boys against a national average of 933 (which in turn is way below the World Health Organisations prescribed ratio of 952). In 2008, 1.67 lakh girls were born in Delhi, against 1.48 lakh in 2007a rise of 19,000.
Chief secretary Rakesh Mehta said the figure clearly manifested a dip in female foeticide and infanticide. The fact remains that despite our best efforts, 40% births in the national capital happen at home and earlier there was no way of ensuring that the girl children were actually born or allowed to live after being born. After the Ladli scheme, those births are getting registered because the Rs 1 lakh that the girl will get under the scheme when she is 18 is not bad money.
However, officials involved in compiling the statistics cautioned that it would be premature to assume a decrease in female foeticide.
A trend of 50 years does not go in a year. The sex ratio is actually worse in posh colonies, where the parents anyway do not qualify for Ladli, said a senior official.
It is a little illogical to assume that Ladli has curbed female foeticide in those classes too. The way we are interpreting the figure is simply that there is an increase in the registration of births of girls, said the official.
In order to qualify for the Ladli scheme, a familys annual income has to be less than Rs 1 lakh a year.
Ironically, the 2001 census clearly showed that the sex ratio is worst in the middle class and the upper middle class localities in the capital, including Punjabi Bagh, Greater Kailash and Malviya Nagar.
Under the Ladli scheme, every girl child is entitled to Rs 6,000/5,000 at the time of birth, depending on whether the baby was delivered in a government hospital or elsewhere.
Then onwards, the government deposits Rs 5,000 each at the time of admission to classes I, VI, IX, X and XII.
The money is kept as a long-term fixed deposit in the name of the child who can encash it when she turns 18.
