o halt the widespread practice of aborting female fetuses, media reported Sunday. Also Sunday, police arrested two people at a hospital near the central Indian city of Bhopal after the discovery of nearly 400 bones from fetuses and newborns, believed to be unwanted baby girls, in a pit behind the hospital.
Dubbed the "cradle scheme," the government's plan is an attempt to slow the practice that international groups say has killed more than 10 million female fetuses in the last two decades, leading to an alarming imbalance in the ratio between males and females in India, Renuka Chowdhury, the minister of state for women and child development, told the Press Trust of India news agency in an interview.
"What we are saying to the people is have your children, don't kill them. And if you don't want a girl child, leave her to us," Chowdhury told PTI, adding that the government planned to set up a center in each regional district.
"We will bring up the children. But don't kill them because there really is a crisis situation," she was quoted as saying.
Many districts in the country of more than 1 billion people routinely report only 800 girls born for every 1,000 boys.
According to the latest Indian census figures, the number of girls per 1,000 boys fell from 945 to 927 between 1991 and 2001.
Asked if the scheme would not encourage parents to abandon female infants, Chowdhury told PTI: "It doesn't matter. It is better than killing them."
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