Girls at a premium

Delhi's sex ratio drops below national and international standards

Engaged in a major face saving operation on the front of organising the Commonwealth Games, the Delhi

government was in for a rude shock as it released the sex-ratio report in the national capital.

In 2008, the Delhi government patted itself on the back and claimed credit for the Laadli Scheme.

Finance Minister Walia, who launched the report, refused a direct comment on the development. "It requires more analysis," he said.

In fact the actual figures could be even worse as an analysis of the sex ratio for non-institutional deliveries shows that in 2009, it was 1,060 as opposed to 1,303 in 2008, which could be an indicator of under-reporting of male births - as there is no incentive in case of boys to register their births - or even over-reporting of female births.

The figures also show that Delhi still has a long way to go before achieving its target of 90% institutional deliveries. The figure has gone up marginally from the 73.45% of 2008 to touch 75.64% in 2009.
The birth rate rose from 19.51 per thousand population in 2008 to 20.21.

The good news though, was that fourth or higher order births were down to 2.79%.
The figures also showed a direct correlation between the education of mother and the number of babies she has.

DEAD WOOD
The average number of deaths per day in Delhi rose from 295 in 2008 to 307 in 2009. The death rate was 6.36 over thousand population, but here the sex ratio was hugely skewed with just 598 females dying for every 1,000 males. Officials say this may actually indicate under-registration as for death, registration - in case of those who die outside hospitals - is usually linked to succession and as more men than women have properties in their names, male deaths are usually registered more.

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