Chandigarh, November 21
The message is loud and clear: the girl child is still unwelcome in Haryana. In fact, more urban the pocket, more substantial the fall in sex ratio this year. It, however, does not imply that rural pockets with their rigourous pregnancy-monitoring mechanisms are untouched by this bias.

From 860 females per every 1,000 males in 2007, the sex ratio went down to 854 in 2008 and further slinked down to 852 this year, reflecting that the government’s policies and incentives to encourage the girl child stand no chance against rigid mindsets.

As if the sex ratio falling in 12 districts this year is not bad news by itself — most significant being Panipat — a couple of laggard districts that had shown positive trends last year — including Mahendergarh — are down again in 2009.

Five districts improved upon their last year’s score. Ambala and Faridabad continued their upward movement for the third consecutive year while Mewat maintained status quo. The newly-carved out Palwal district has the best sex ratio — 906 females per 1,000 males — closely followed by Faridabad with 904.

In the sex ratio at birth in districts, as per CRS for 2009 (upto October 2009), the sex ratio in Panipat fell from 861 last year to 830 while it was pegged at 868 females per 1,000 males in 2007.

Districts that have recorded a fall in sex ratio this year are Bhiwani, Fatehabad, Jind, Karnal, Mahendergarh, Panchkula, Panipat, Rewari, Rohtak, Sirsa, Sonepat and Yamunanagar.

While Jind witnessed a fall of 27 girls per 1000 ending up with a ratio of 867:1000, Rohtak -- Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s home district -- recorded a fall of 26 girls per 1000. Rohtak presently has a sex ratio of 827:1000 and was one of the five districts to have moved from a positive trend in 2007-08 to a negative one in 2008-09. Other districts to have crossed over to the negative side are Mahendergarh, Sirsa, Sonepat and Fatehabad.

Seven districts that continued their downward drive since 2007 are Bhiwani, which had bettered itself from 2005-07, Jind, Karnal (832 per 1,000), Panchkula (871 per 1,000), Panipat, Rewari and Yamunanagar (824 per 1,000).

For three years in a row, Rewari has been the poorest “performer” among districts with the number of girls born in the district falling with each passing year. From a sex ratio of 804 in 2007, the number of girls born per 1000 males stands at a shameful 777 this year.

Mahendergarh, which was at the bottom of the sex ratio chart with 768 females per 1,000 in 2007, climbed up to 793 the next year only to slip back to 789 and move up to the last-but-one place in 2009.

Reasons for the fall continue to be the same - a society that prefers boys and lack of NGOs among other.