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

Keeping track: The Pune Municipal Corporation plans to maintain a register of all pregnancies in the city, and has already begun the exercise in slum areas. representation pic

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

"This exercise will take place within 15 days. Initially, it will start from municipal hospitals and clinics and then spread to private maternity homes and hospitals," Pathak said. Dr Anjali Sabne, head of PMC's family welfare bureau, said that the process of collecting data of pregnant women was already underway. "Right now, we do so in the slum areas only. Once we get the go ahead, we will devise a plan to collect information from the urban areas as well," she said. Besides its plan to keep track of pregnant woman, the health department will devise a foolproof strategy to crack down on illegal ultrasounds.