PMC goes all out to prevent female foeticide

Special squads, pregnancy registry, ban on mobile sonography machines some of the measures to be introduced by civic and state agencies to curb malpractice

PMC goes all out to prevent female foeticide

Special squads, pregnancy registry, ban on mobile sonography machines some of the measures to be introduced by civic and state agencies to curb malpractice

In the coming days, the civic body will unleash a slew of measures to curb female foeticide. Primary among them would be to keep a tab on pregnant women in the city. The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will collect data from private and public hospitals, clinics and doctors to maintain a registry of pregnancies, civic chief Mahesh Pathak said on Wednesday.u00a0

Besides, the PMC is also contemplating installing CCTV cameras at sonography centres to monitor patients.
Not to be left behind, the state department too has stepped up surveillance. In the last 11 days, 2,738 sonography machines at 1,071 sonography clinics across the state have been inspected. Of these, 158 have been sealed, most of which were from the Beed district. Of these 14 machines were sealed in the Pune district, nine of them within the PMC limits and five from Pimpri-Chinchwad.

Dr Suresh Gupta, additional director of family welfare department, said that meetings were being held at the ministry level to crackdown on illegal abortion centres. "We are contemplating a ban on mobile sonography machines. Though these machines have been getting permissions and registrations so far, their usage and numbers have risen dramatically in the last few years. It is not possible to keep a strict check on them," he said.

(Part I of a series on female foeticide prevention)

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