Number of girl dips in Chennai

In what comes as a major cause for concern, the child sex ratio in the Chennai city has dropped from 972 in 2001 to 950 in 2011, indicating a possible bias that the denizens in the cosmopolitan city are prejudiced against the girl child. But the good news silver lining in this dark cloud, as revealed by Census 2011, is that Chennai fares much better than the other metros. The worst of the four metros in the country is Delhi, which has 873 girls for every 1000 boys, followed by Mumbai at 914 and Kolkata at 933.

 

Social activist Dr Sabu George said that, in the case of Chennai, since the live birth rate is 950, the child sex ratio must be around the number and it is 950. Thus, the reason for a fall in the child sex ratio could be the fall in the live birth rate. Nevertheless, there is serious concern among medical experts and activists, who attribute the drop partly to sex selection at pre-conception stage itself. In fertility centres, couples prefer to identify the sperm and embryo and there are various techniques to select the sex of the fetus. But that trend is more widespread in cities like Mumbai and Delhi.