The State Government of Himachal Pradesh has decided to make procurement of sex determination diagnostic and pregnancy termination kits online a punishable offence, as it was found that, some blocks in lower areas of Himachal Pradesh are witnessing a rise in male child births. The State Government fears that people might be using prenatal sex determination test kits after buying it online.

It was on Saturday, 18^th of June 2011, a meeting of State supervisory board constituted under PC-PNDT Act was held at Shimla to discuss the issue.

It was stated by Dr. Rajiv Bindal, State Health Minister, that the health department officials are preparing a road map to ensure the effective implementation of the same.

He also added that in some hospitals Nalagarh block of Solan district, Nurpur block of Kagra district, and in Hamirpur block, the rise of male child has been recorded and it is quite unusual as the State has improved the child sex ratio in the fresh census.

People are now buying sex determination kits, that are similar to pregnancy testing kits, online from China and U.S. as the Government of Himachal Pradesh has banned sex determination through ultra sound machines.

He also said that, the officials have directed to check places where this new method is happening under which, the urinary kit changes colour on the basis of X-Y chromosomes.

In this regard the Himachal Pradesh Government is planning to take the help of cyber crime police wing as identifying people using this sex determination is going to be a challenge.

Again it was also stated that the Government has planned to ban the sale of Schedule- H drugs without prescription from a registered doctor as, after sex determination the people uses these pills, leading to incomplete abortions.

Report by Sharika