New Delhi, April 1
The union government is mulling yet another amendment in the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act of 1994. The idea is to further strengthen the Act to deter sex determination, which continues unabated despite stringent measures contained in the Act.

This will be the second amendment of the PC & PNDT Act ever since it was passed in 1994. The last revision was done in 2003 to curb further decline in the sex ratio that rested at 927, as per the 2001 census.

There is a need to amend the Act and send out clearer signals to the violators that infringements will invite sterner penalties in the future, highly placed sources in the government today told The Tribune. A primary amendment, proposed by the Central Supervisory Board (CSB) constituted under the Act to check female foeticide, pertains to confiscation of equipment used in unregistered ultrasound clinics.

As per the existing Act, the equipment, once seized from the clinic, can be taken back after payment of penalty that is five times the cost of clinic registration. This provision, it was believed, was being widely misused as clinic owners hardly found the penalty amount forbidding. The CSB has now proposed to amend the Act to allow confiscation of equipment once and for all and take legal action against unregistered clinics as per the existing Act.

Members of the CSB, drawn from health, women, child and legal sector, have further proposed to designate health secretaries of the states as state appellate authorities under the Act. The charge, as per the current provisions, is with director, health and family welfare or director general health services of the state.

At the district level, the proposal is to designate district collectors as district appellate authorities in place of chief medical officers. The objective, it is learnt, is to revolutionise the Act by shaking up its monitoring system. Voices have been raised in the past, saying chief medical officers sometimes feel inhibited to proceed against people from their own profession.

The CSB has, meanwhile, also given its principal approval to the proposed amendment whereby any group B gazetted officer will have the authority for search and seizure under PNDT Act. Right now this authority is vested in the civil surgeons at district level and senior medical officers at sub-divisional level.

Revision is also on the cards for those sections of the act that deal with advertisement of sex determination methods. This section is proposed to be strengthened by way of penal provisions so that adverse publicity of diagnostic techniques by mass media can be prevented.

All proposed amendments to the PNDT Act would be sent to the law ministry,