In a move to reduce female infanticide and to ensure protection of girl child, district and block-level committees, comprising members from various departments, will be formed soon.
The infant mortality in the district which was earlier 11, as per official records, started increasing this year. While it was 31 in January, the figure shot to 37 in April. Out of this a majority were girls.
In the age group of 0 to 6 years, only less than 800 survive out of every 1,000 girls survive.
“Most often the girl child dies before the age of 1. Sometimes it is due to natural reasons, but many a times the parents cook up some reason and this raises suspicion,” said an official from the social defence department.
Tiruvannamalai Collector K. S. Kandasamy said that stringent measures were being taken to prevent such deaths.
“All the Village Health Nurses (VHN), Public Health Centre staff and anganwadi workers have been asked to follow up on newborns in their area,” he said.
The newly formed district and block-level committees, comprising members from departments such as health, revenue and social welfare, will create awareness among villagers about laws protecting women and girl children.
“If a new born dies, especially a baby girl, it will immediately be reviewed to ascertain if the cause was natural or if it was a case of infanticide. If there is any suspicion, we will register a police case,” said a senior official from the district administration.
A few weeks ago, police registered a case against one Sivakumar and his wife Vendha of Pachal village in Tiruvannamalai district on suspicion that they had killed their third girl child by setting her afire.
“This was possible as a VHN tracked them when the couple went missing from the hospital after delivery,” added the official.
The district administration is also keeping a close watch on scanning centres.
Scan centres under watch
“There are a total of 122 centres and out of this 58 are owned by private players. We have asked them to maintain a log book of customers and surprise checks will be conducted by our team," said Mr. Kandasamy.
An exclusive helpline, under the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme, will be set up in the State to report crime against women in the district.
“This will be under the District Collector. It can also be used to report other crimes against women too,” said an official.