The Minister for Women and Child Development, Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi had inaugurated the All India Regional Editors’ Conference on 1^st February, 2016 at Jaipur. During the interaction with the media persons, the Minister discussed a large number of initiatives which the WCD Ministry has undertaken in the last twenty months. The issue of Child Sex Ratio and Ministry’s programme of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao was widely deliberated upon.

Some of the newspapers have reported that the Minister referred to a Cabinet proposal about tracking female foeticide and registering the sex of the foetus. This is factually incorrect. Smt Maneka Sanjay Gandhi had said that there is an alternative point of view that if each pregnancy could be registered and the sex of the foetus could be made known to the parents and if the same happens to be a female, the delivery should be tracked and recorded. Such a system would help in ensuring that a foetus is not aborted only because it is a female.

It is clarified that the WCD Minister referred to this as a point of view which has often been brought up by stakeholders before the Ministry. She had specifically stated that this needs further debate and had requested the media persons to give their suggestions. It is further clarified that there is no formal proposal being considered by the Ministry on this issue at this stage.

The WCD Ministry is open to suggestions and feedback which may be given on the Facebook Page, Twitter handle and e-mail of the Ministry (min-wcd@nic.in)

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NB/UD