Ahmedabad: The existence of girls in Gujarat — which attained national infamy for its skewed child sex ratio (CSR) of 886 girls per 1,000 boys in Census 2001 — continues to be under threat. The 2017 figures reveal that the sex ratio at birth (SRB) has further declined and is now 842, from 848 in 2016.
The eight municipal corporations — Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Gandhinagar, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Junagadh and Bhavnagar — in the state are worse off in terms of SRB. At these corporation areas, there are only 788 girls born for every 1,000 boys born. This number was 794 according to the Sample Registration System data from 2013-2015.
After a marginal recovery in sex ratio at birth (SRB) between 2007 and 2014, where the number of girls rose above 900 per 1,000 boys born, Gujarat has again come under the scanner for its alarming fall of 69 points in the SRB between years 2011 and 2017. This is the highest fall in average SRB recorded for any state in the country.
The SRB of 848 in 2014-16 was one of the lowest ever since 2005-07 from when data was available with the state. The number of girls born then was 891 per 1,000 boys. The figures released by the government for 2017 show a further dip. According to the SRB data released by the Gujarat Government for 2017, Ahmedabad district has the highest number of girls born per 1,000 boys, at 978. However, for the area under the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, this has dipped to 743 girls per 1,000 boys. The 2017 data reveals that not a single district had shown an improvement.
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