Secret informers play crucial role in leading ‘Beti-Bachao, Beti Padhao’ campaign

Chandigarh: Ambitious ‘Beti-Bachao, Beti Padhao’ campaign in Haryana has been the catalyst in enhancing the skewed sector-ratio of the state from 879 females per 1,000 males as per 2011 census figures to 915 females per 1,000 males in December 2025 as per the state figures.

The star performers of the campaign launched in 2015 have been the secret informers or decoys like Naina (name changed) who in a span of eight years (2017 to 2025) has conducted 40 successful raids. Of these 40 raids, 20 were under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act and remaining 20 under the Pre-Conception Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex as election) Act, (PCPNDT Act).

Speaking to the Millennium Post in an exclusive interview, Naina while sharing her journey said, “I myself am a proud mother to three daughters. So, projects on uplifting girl child and protecting them are close to my heart. I have been working as an informer and decoy for so many years and hence am able to plan the plot smoothly thereby ensuring successful raids on clinics indulging in gender identification or illegal termination of pregnancy. I have travelled to different states to conduct raids. The illegal gender identification is conducted rampantly in other states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The Haryana government is very strict and it is less common in this area though not completely wiped out.”

Speaking further, Naina asserted that in one such raid, she posed as a decoy and got her foetus’s gender identification done in a diagnostic centre in Jhajjar in 2018. The person conducting the test was unqualified. I made a video and the raid was successful. The clinic still remains closed. She added, “There are numerous such clinics and illegal sale of pregnancy termination kits across the country and we informers are working very hard to curtail the numbers of these illegal diagnostics centres et al.”

In another such raid conducted in Amroha district in Uttar Pradesh in 2019, shared Naina, “I received a tip off regarding gender identification being conducted at a centre. We went with a decoy who was pregnant. I was the informer in this. We recorded the entire ultrasound in which the person is very clearly identifying the gender of the foetus.”

Naina is on a mission to ensure a girl-child is equally wanted by parents as much a male child. In a candid confession she stated that she aims to raise her daughters as working independent women. After my husband’s demise I have been bringing up my daughters with my mother’s support and hope every girl-child gets care of her parents.”