At the juncture of the history when the social organisations are putting all their sincere efforts to break the misconceptions around the usage of sanitary pads, the Maharashtra government is set to introduce a revolutionary sanitary pad scheme, which was conceptualised by State Women and Child and Rural Development Minister Pankaja Munde, in the state to provide the students and women in the rural areas, where the pad is hardly available and is considered as a shameful thing, with sanitary pads at low costs with the help of the Self Help Groups and Non Governmental Organisations operating in those regions.
As part of the scheme, the girl students studying in the Zilla Parshand Schools functioning in the state will be given sanitary pads at a low cost of five rupees. Meanwhile, under the same scheme, the rural women living in the regions where the women are less aware about the pad and its usage will be imparted knowledge about the subject with the assistance of the SHGs and NGOs and distributed subsidised sanitary pads.
The ambitious scheme, aimed to reduce the ‘girl school dropout level’ and increase the ‘rural women’s health and, thus, employability’, is likely to be launched on March 8 in a colourful function attended by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar, who recently acted in a film, called ‘PadMan’, which speaks boldly about the subjects ‘menstrual hygiene’ and ‘sanitary pads’.
Vignesh. S. G
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