Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) has decided to create an extra seat and reserve it for single girl child in M.Phil courses, an official said here on Sunday.

Earlier, the university created an extra seat in graduate and postgraduate professional courses and reserved it for girls who were the only child of their parents.

"Now we have decided to reserve one supernumerary seat for single girl child in all M.Phil courses also from this academic year on the pattern of postgraduate and undergraduate courses," HPU Vice-Chancellor Sunil Kumar Gupta told the sources.

He said the objective of reserving the seat for the girls is to check the social evil of female foeticide.

As per the 2001 Census, the sex ratio in major states ranged from 861 in Haryana to 1,058 in Kerala. Himachal Pradesh recorded 968 females per 1,000 males. IANS