Viewing the success of Centre for Social Research’s Meri Shakti Meri Beti campaign launched in partnership with Women Power Connect (WPC) in the two lowest sex ratio districts of Haryana (Kurukshetra and Ambala) in 2009, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (GOI) has appreciated CSR’s work, and has assigned it to replicate the project in these 2 districts of Haryana with 20 more villages and 10 blocks.

Haryana and Punjab are synonymous with prosperity and wealth which followed as a result of the Green Revolution. Ironically, these two states are also synonymous with skewed sex ratios when observed from a gender lens. Surprisingly, the effect of sex selective abortions is most pronounced among the literate section of people in places like Delhi, Punjab and Haryana than the illiterate masses. As a result, between 35 and 40 million girls and women are already missing from the Indian population.

As per the 2001 census, Ambala district in Haryana accounted for 784 girls per 1000 boys whereas Kurukshetra was at a low of 770 girls per 1000 boys. The four worst hit districts of Haryana in respect of 0-6 year age group as per 2001 Census are Kurukshetra (770), Sonepat (783), Ambala (784) and Rohtak (796) with below 800 female children per 1000 male children.

The Study Area has been selected based on lowest incidence of sex ratio (as per Census 2001) and as per the Civil Registration System in the District HQs. 10 villages each from each district are selected as the intervention area.

In accordance with the Census 2001 and the data available from the District-level Government Civil Hospital under supervision of the Chief Medical Officer of Ambala and Kurukshetra for 2009 and 2010 in the target areas of the project, the following 20 villages (10 per district) were chosen:

Villages in Ambala: