Cong, BJP demand action against officials for ‘misleading’ Uttarkashi sex-ratio data

PTI, Jul 25, 2019, 4:33 PM IST

Dehradun: The Congress and the BJP have urged the Uttarakhand government to take action against the officials responsible for allegedly issuing misleading sex-ratio figures for Uttarkashi, saying it had ruined the district’s image throughout the country.

Official sex ratio data released for Uttarkashi recently said between April 1 and June 30, there were 216 deliveries in 133 villages of the district and all of them were boys. In a statement on Thursday, state Congress spokesperson Pradip Bhatt said it seemed from the data that there were only 133 villages in the district.

Bhatt pointed out that the same data also spoke about the birth of 180 girls in 129 other villages of Uttarkashi, which he said was ignored by the district administration.

If the data is viewed in totality, he said it revealed that there were 961 deliveries in the district during the three-month period, out of which 468 were boys and 479 were girls, whereas 14 died.

The Congress leader said the improvement in the sex ratio was completely lost sight of by the authorities while releasing the data. Bhatt urged Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat to immediately dismiss the officials for releasing only one part of the data, which he alleged was misleading.

BJP state executive member Lokendra Bisht has also demanded stern action against the officials responsible for issuing the “misleading” sex-ratio figures for Uttarkashi.

In a memorandum to the chief minister on Wednesday, Bisht said the sex ratio data, which showed that not a single girl child was born in over 100 villages, was misleading and ruined the reputation of the district in the entire country.