Anupriya Patel, MOS, Health on PC-PNDT act

The Government of India has enacted the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994, for prohibition of sex selection before or after conception and for prevention of misuse of pre-conception and pre-natal diagnostic techniques for sex determination. The responsibility of implementation of the Act lies with State/ UT Governments, including taking action against medical Professionals for the offences of sex selection /sex determination.

The Minister of State (Health and Family Welfare), Smt Anupriya Patel recently apprised the Lok Sabha about the various developments that had taken place to prevent pre-natal sex determination in the country.

As per the updates provided the by hon'ble minister, some salient figures include

• Statistics revealed that the state of Maharashtra topped in the number of inspections conducted by the authorities with 1,45,918 facilities inspected till now. This was followed by Punjab with 36,549 facilities inspected and then Haryana 24,626 inspections had taken place


• Rajasthan, probably saw the highest impact in terms of implementation, with 634 court cases reported under the act.  A total of 137 convictions have taken place till now with 21 licences being suspended on account of pre natal sex determination in the state. 


• Maharshtra stood second with a total of 567 court cases, 84 convictions and 68 suspensions. 


• Haryana state currently has 182 ongoing cases under the act, with 66 convictions having taken place till now. A total of 14 medical licenses have been suspended for the violations of the said act.

 

As per information received from States/UTs, the State/UT-wise details of inspection conducted under the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994 is given below:

State wise number of premises Inspected under PC&PNDT Act (Up to September, 2016)
S. No.	State/UT	No. of Premises Inspected
1	Andhra Pradesh	7904
2	Arunachal Pradesh	22
3	Assam	3307
4	Bihar	1564
5	Chhattisgarh	361
6	Goa	753
7	Gujarat	463
8	Haryana	24626
9	Himachal Pradesh	223
10	Jammu & Kashmir	1266
11	Jharkhand	1024
12	Karnataka	2281
13	Kerala	987
14	Madhya Pradesh	4608
15	Maharashtra	145918
16	Manipur	229
17	Meghalaya	26
18	Mizoram	Nil
19	Nagaland	2
20	Odisha	2449
21	Punjab	36549
22	Rajasthan	9978
23	Sikkim	40
24	Tamil Nadu	12457
25	Telangana	4237
26	Tripura	71
27	Uttarakhand	2301
28	Uttar Pradesh	21010
29	West Bengal	5350
30	A & N. Island	4
31	Chandigarh	1255
32	D. & N. Haveli	15
33	Daman & Diu	9
34	Delhi	6188
35	Lakshadweep	3
36	Puducherry	171
	Total	297651

As per the quarterly progress report (QPR) received from States/ UTs, a total of 2352 court cases have been filed by the District Appropriate Authorities for violating the provisions of the PC&PNDT Act. 386 convictions have been secured under PC&PNDT Act, the medical licenses of 108 doctors have been suspended by the various State Medical Councils, following convictions.   State wise details are given below:

Financial support to the States and UTs for Orientation & Sensitisation Workshop and Information, Education & Communication campaigns for the implementation of the PC & PNDT Act under the National Health Mission (NHM).

 Advertisements and Impact on search engines 

The Hon'ble Supreme Court vide its order dated 16.11.2016 in WP 341 of 2008 has directed the Union of India to constitute a Nodal Agency to  monitor and trigger search engines to crack down on online pre-natal sex determination advertisements.

As per the directions of Hon'ble Supreme Court vide its order dated 16.11.2016 in WP 341 of 2008,  anybody who comes across anything in nature of the advertisement which has the impact of identifying the sex of foetus shall be brought to the notice of the Nodal Agency and same shall be intimated to the concerned search engines by the Nodal Agency which shall be removed/ deleted within 36 hours and compliance shall be intimated to the Nodal Agency.

The Union Government is required to comply with the directions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court vide its order dated 16.11.2016 in WP 341 of 2008.

Read Also : Put Autoblock on Internet ads on Sex Determination: SC to Google, Yahoo, Microsoft