HYDERABAD: It’s official now. Play a detective and you can take home Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh for exposing diagnostic centres which perform sex-determination tests on foetus. Telangana State Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostics Act (PCPNDT) Cell has received approval for grant of Rs 2.5 lakh incentive for those participating in successful decoy operations against such diagnostic centres, hospitals or clinics.
This come as a whopping 650 per cent hike as earlier only Rs 5000 or Rs 15,000 was given to such persons. Officials said that this will help in bringing down female feticide.
Of the Rs 2.5 lakh incentive, the person who passes information about such clinical establishments will be rewarded Rs 1 lakh, pregnant women who pose as client in need of the illegal test will get Rs 1 lakh, and the person who accompanies the pregnant women will be given Rs 50,000. It is also required to collect video proof of the illegal test being performed.
However, since the incentive was too low earlier and other States such as Rajasthan had been giving Rs 2.5 lakh from 2012 under Mukbhir Yojana, PCPNDT Cell from Telangana officials framed a proposal and sent it to Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. National Health Mission’s official approved the hike. “We received the approval from Central government. This will be applicable for five cases,” said CH Satyanarayana Reddy, joint director of PCPNDT Cell. The official earlier said that they will ask for more funds if there are more than five successful decoy operations.
Now, the Cell officials will frame guidelines regarding how participants would be selected, who would select them, level of security that had to be assured for pregnant women, informers and those who accompany the women in decoy operations, and other details.
These guidelines will be sent for State government’s approval and once they are approved, the guidelines would be publicised so that people get to know about the incentive system.
In April, Hyderabad Police Task Force had conducted a decoy operation with help of a pregnant woman and cracked down on a hospital and a scanning centre where sex-determination tests were being conducted, and sealed them.
Police personnel who earlier participated in such decoy operations by keeping track of all steps of such tasks, said that since informers, pregnant women and others take heavy risk, the incentive works as reward for taking the bold step in saving girl children.
Quarterly progress report of PCPNDT Act released
Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare released quarterly progress report related to PCPNDT Act, according to which a total of 24 cases related to violations are either being investigated by police or are under trial in court in TS. Officials from the State Health department said that the report had details of the activities they have taken up from the year the Act was implemented, till March-2018.
In the State, officials have either sealed or seized 108 machines for violations under PCPNDT Act. The highest of 537 machines were seized or sealed in Haryana, and in Andhra Pradesh the number stands at 15. Officials from Health department said that they have received approval to appoint PNPNDT District Programme coordinators for erstwhile 10 districts of Telangana.