The statistics provided by the Karnataka government on teenage pregnancies and reasons given for child marriages in the State came under criticism on Friday as they trained their guns at Women and Child Development Minister Lakshmi Hebbalkar for not providing comprehensive figures.
Legislators Bharathi Shetty of BJP and S. Umashree of the Congress in the Legislative Council took objection to the statistics provided by the government, which said that 986 teenage pregnancies had been reported in the State over the last three years. Ms. Shetty, who posed the question, disagreed with the figures and said that reports in media had revealed higher numbers. She said that awareness has to be created among children studying between seventh and tenth standard.
Ms. Umashree, a former Women and Child Development Minister, also took objection to the figures, and pointed out that the data with the Health Department had a higher figure.
