Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat is keen to do her bit to raise awareness on the skewed sex ratio in her native state of Haryana.
"She (Sherawat) recently approached us saying that she wants to come to Haryana and do some work on female foeticide," Haryana's health minister Geeta Bhukkal said today.
However, the actress has said that she wanted adequate security arrangements. Bhukkal said that Sherawat had been told that it was for the State Home Department to act on her security request and that she should forward it to them.
Sherawat, who hails from Rohtak, is known for her sensual roles in films like Khwahish, Murder and recently released Hisss.
Haryana may be marching ahead on many fronts, but when it comes to sex ratio it lags behind with the number of births of girls for every 1,000 boys falling from 852 in 2009 to 838 last year.
"The government is concerned about it. We have already taken a number of steps to improve the gender ratio. We are also contemplating framing a policy to check female foeticide," the health minister said.
Bhukkal said women athletes from Haryana who brought laurels to the country in the Delhi Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games in China last year would also be roped in to create public awareness on the issue.
The minister's home district Jhajjar, Ambala, Kurukshetra, Bhiwani are among the worst affected districts where gender ratio is adverse.
The minister said that to create public awareness on the female foeticide issue, the government was also taking services of noted satirist and actor Jaspal Bhatti and his wife Savita while it was already rewarding those village panchayats which showed improvement in gender ratio.
"We also have schemes like the 'Ladli' for the girl child and give incentives to the girls," she said.
Recently, a special Lohri celebration was held in Karnal dedicated to all girls by an NGO to help create awareness on the issue. Sarpanches from 23 villages in Haryana where the birth rate of girls was more than that of boys were specially honoured at the event.
