Bhubaneswar, March 31: Around four to five girls had been going missing from the state on a daily basis from 2009 to 2013.

Official estimates revealed that 8,246 girls, all below the age of 18, had been missing from the state during that five-year period.

This information saw the light of day after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had come up with its latest report. The report was also tabled in the Assembly today.

Among the 11,552 missing children in the state, 8,246 were girls, which constituted nearly 71 per cent of the total missing children. The number of boys who had gone missing was 3,306.

The CAG further points that the missing number of girls has outnumbered boys every year. The CAG findings are more worrying, because the number of missing girls are increasing manifold every passing year. In 2009, 910 girls had gone missing, but it went up to 2,006 in 2013.

Women activist Tapasi Praharaj said: "The number of missing girls are much bigger than what is reported to the police stations. In many instances, the parents do not bother to file complaints at the police stations due to the social stigma attached to it."

Praharaj had undertaken a study on the issue and found that trafficking and inducing the parents to marry off their girls at an early age are the foremost reasons for the constant rise in the number of missing girls.

"Acute poverty forced many parents to send their girls to other states where the sex ratio is skewed," Praharaj said. She also went to Haryana to make a detailed study on the issue.

Director-general of police Sanjeev Marik said: "According to the Supreme Court guidelines, we are bound to report each and every case of missing children. That is the reason why the number of missing cases has increased. However, there are some socio-economic reasons behind the missing of girls."

Marik further said they would leave no stone unturned to rescue the missing girls.

The state home department sources said that out of the 8,246 girls, some 2,972 girls were rescued. Odisha police also maintained that a web-based child tracking system came into operation in the state from January 2013, where all the details of the missing and rescued children are registered.

The CAG also stated that mortality rates for the girl children less than five years of age stood at 74, which exceeded the male child rate of 70 per 1,000 live births. Though there is gender inequality in the state, data were not maintained under the Integrated Child Development Scheme platform to ensure 100 per cent coverage of children, especially girls, under the supplementary nutritional programme.