961 centers are located in the five western districts notorious for feticide
1,500 new scan centers have spawned in the last four years for Foetus sex test
Coimbatore: At least 1,500 new scan centers have spawned in the last four years in Tamil Nadu, especially in the female feticide and infanticide hubs of western Tamil Nadu. From just 3,491 scan centres in 2010, Tamil Nadu is home to as many as 4,978 centres as on June 2014, pointing to an unchecked flourishing trade in feticide.
Among the 4,978 scan centres in Tamil Nadu, 961 centers are located in the five western districts of Salem, Erode, Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri and Coimbatore, notorious for feticide. And the Salem district, the infamous capital of infanticide in the state, houses 260 scan centers and next stands Erode district with 191 centers.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, Tamil Nadu stands second next to Chhattisgarh with 13 incidents of infanticide in 2013. The state shares a shameful 15 per cent of total number of infanticide cases in the country. Social activists say that the increase in the number of infanticide and feticide should be linked to the unregulated growth of scan centers.
According to activist M.Jeeva of CASSA (Campaign Against Sex Selective Abortion), “unregulated growth of scan centres and lack of stringent measures against centres that assist couples to go for selective abortion are the major factors leading to killing of many female fetuses. No record is maintained on number of abortions performed in each center.” Worse still, the state level supervisory board to implement the ‘Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994(PC&PNDT Act) has not been reconstituted for several years now.
Health department officials said that inspections are carried out in scan centers only once a year. And they have registered 74 cases under PC&PNDT Act since 1990s.
“We do not have data on number of abortions performed in each centre. We inspect the scan centres only based on complaints. This year alone four new cases are registered on doctors who were involved in sex selective abortion,” said a senior health department official.
Another member of CASSA A.Gandhimathi said that over 500 complaints have been filed with the health department against the scan centers on sex determination and abortion. “We have not received any response from the government on action taken on these centers. We will file a suit shortly for not taking action on scan centers and differences in sex ratio in many districts in Tamil Nadu,” she said.
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