Model Gujarat India's 'worst performer' in sex ratio at birth: Union home ministry report

In a surprise development, a Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) report titled ‘Vital Statistics of India based on the Civil Registration System’ has revealed that Gujarat is the worst performer insofar as Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB) is concerned, raising concern whether female foeticide is rampant in a state touted as model by India’s top rulers.
The just-released report, which says that “lowest SRB has been reported by Gujarat (901), Assam (903), Madhya Pradesh (905) followed by Jammu & Kashmir (909)”, ironically, has come close on the heels of a Niti Aayog report which claims that in health sector goals, Gujarat and Delhi are the top performers among all the states and the Union Territories (UTs).
The NITI Aayog’s SDG India Index 2020-21 report, which seeks to analyse how states and UTs have performed in achieving sustainable development goal (SDG), says that, in the indicator good health and well-being, compared to India’s average, Gujarat saw lower proportion of maternal deaths, and mortality in children under five years.
The Niti report also claims that Gujarat achieved better case notification rate of tuberculosis per one lakh population, lower death rate due to road traffic accidents per one lakh population, greater institutional deliveries, lower monthly out of pocket expenditure on health as a share of monthly per capita consumption rate, and higher number of health staff per 10,000 population.
Yet, the MHA report believes, the best performers in SRB are Arunachal Pradesh (1024), followed by Nagaland (1001) Mizoram (975) and A & N Islands (965). The report has been prepared by the MHA’s Vital Statistics Division.
Based on data on birth registration, the report also regrets the share of male registration at birth “is more than the female in almost all these major states, but “this gap is much wider for Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab and Assam.”
A glance through data in the report on the level of registration of births in Gujarat reveals that while in 2011, it was 98.9%, it progressively came down each year, reaching a low 87.3% in 2019. Ironically, Gujarat’s registration went down over the nine years for which data has been provided at a time when the national average of registration of births has been progressively going up – from 82.4% in 2011 to 92.7% in 2019.
The registration of births has been constantly going down in Gujarat despite the fact that, according to the report, the state government massively geared up its machinery for registering births and deaths. Thus, it says, “A web-based application namely ‘e-Olakh’ developed by State NIC is being used in the state for the purpose of registration of birth and death”, in order to have “computerized system of registration at village/taluka/district level.”
Not just this. According to the report, in Gujarat, there was also a huge effort to train cadres for registering births and deaths. Thus, during 2019, “taluka statistical assistants were trained on day to day functioning of the system in the monthly meetings organized at district HQ wherein approximately more than one thousand officials were imparted training.”

Also, in Gujarat, “at state level, training had been imparted using Sat-Com technology to the registrars, sub-registrars and statistical assistants etc. In addition to this, training had also been imparted to Statistical Assistants and Programme Assistants (CRS) in regular review meetings conducted at state level.”
At the same time, the report contends, the registrar of births and deaths in Gujarat have been “sensitized to improve registration to achieve cent percent implementation of online registration of births and deaths”, and publicity efforts have been made by the state and district authorities, through various meetings for improving registration of births and deaths.”
Ironically, despite these efforts, the report admits, in Gujarat “most of the posts of taluka/district statistical assistants are vacant out of total sanctioned posts. Registrars are not utilizing the powers vested under the section 15 of the Registration of Birth and Death (RBD), Act, 1969 regarding corrections and cancellation of entries in birth and death record.”

It underlines, in Gujarat, there is “lack of awareness about the need and importance of registration of births and deaths and lack of registration procedure knowledge among the public.”

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog