End female foeticide, officials told to raise awareness

Mysuru, NT Bureau: Describing female foeticide amounts to a murder case, Deputy Director of Health and Family Welfare department Bengaluru Dr Vivek Dorai stressed the need to raise awareness to end the practice of female foeticide in the state.

He was speaking at the one day Mysuru divisional workshop organized for District Health Officers to monitor the implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 jointly by District Administration, Zilla Panchayat , Department of Health and Family Welfare held at Zilla Panchayat Hall in the city.

He said that PC, PNDT act was first introduced in Maharashtra state in 1988 to curb female foeticide.

Though the union government had introduced this legislation in 1994, many states did not show much interest to implement this legislation in its initial days.

Following Supreme Court directions based on a public interest litigation petition to implement this legislation strictly, all states took this act seriously from 2001, he said.