Nellol: With only 1,000 men and 947 women in the Chittoor area, struggling to cope with the disturbing gender imbalance, the lowest in the state. The worsening gender ratio has sparked emergency operations by district officials, including a raid led by collector Sumit Kumar, where a team from Tamil Nadu was caught in a private residence with a red hand for illegal gender determination test.
The raid has illuminated the growing threat: unauthorized gender testing and illegal abortion, especially in border areas such as Nagari, Paramanna, Panganur and V. Kota, where cross-border medical teams are allegedly unchecked.
At a high-level meeting of the PCPNDT Regional Advisory Committee, the collector severely reduced the health and ICD sectors by failing to detect and curb these violations. He questioned why pregnant women were not properly tracked, especially if the first two children were girls, despite the presence of Asha, Anms and Anganwadi workers in the wild.
“The department is obviously not talking to each other,” he said. “Why do we have this information? Why are these violations not noticed?”
He called for a lack of coordination between the health and women’s welfare sectors, noting that no joint review meeting was held for many years. The collector stressed that malnutrition indicators (such as pregnant women who did not collect Anganwadi nutritional supplements) should be marked for pregnancy at risk, but even these pregnant women are ignored.
The situation is terrible. He warned that the already misrepresented gender ratio in the region could drop further if illegal abortion continues.
He directed DM&HO to have a zoning meeting with RMP doctors to ensure on-site inspections and strictly monitor drug sales, and stressed that drugs should not be sold without a prescription. He also called for surveillance of ultrasound sales after reports of unauthorized equipment being used for prenatal gender testing.
The main officials of the meeting attended the meeting, including DM&HO DR Sudharani, ICDS PD Venkateswari, Dio Hanumantha Rao, Commander Dr. Ushasri, drug inspector Keerthana and Ms. Police Department officials.
The collector concluded: “It is everyone’s responsibility to save girls.”
