According to Civil Registration System (CRS) data, Haryana achieved a sex ratio of 900 girls as against 1000 boys in 2016. This is much in contrast to the statistics of 2011, when Haryana had the worst sex ratio of 834:1000 among all states in the country.
The Haryana State government had been making concerted efforts to improve the sex ratio, and now it has taken a leap forward by achieving marked improvement in the Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB).
The reasons for low sex ratio in Haryana are obvious. The assumption is that girls are a burden and it’s coupled with burgeoning ultrasound centres-1,174 now-mostly functioning clandestinely. Medically terminating an unwanted pregnancy costs between Rs 1,000 and Rs 20,000 and the mushrooming of non-registered centres has only fuelled the menace of female foeticide.
The skewed sex ratio has had a social impact. It’s causing a huge bride shortage. Theoretically, it should have checked dowry but a large number of those who get married demand hefty dowry. At many places, barter marriages are taking place; people marry their daughters and in return get a bride for their sons. Those who cannot get brides locally are buying them from Assam, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar and other poor states.
The bias against girls, rooted in short-term economic considerations, is slowly but surely leaving behind long-term scars that Haryana will find difficult to heal. A lot of its men may just be forced to stay single with brides hard to come by.