Maharashtra may further subsidise sanitary napkins for school girls, self-help groups

A previous BJP scheme providing an eight-napkin pack for ₹5 lapsed last year; the State is now mulling a further reduction to ₹1, and has allocated ₹100 crore for this, says Minister Girish Mahajan

The Maharashtra government plans to revive a scheme to provide sanitary napkins at a subsidised rate to rural school girls and women from self-help groups, and may further reduce the price of an eight-napkin pack from ₹5 to ₹1, the State’s Medical Education and Rural Development Minister Girish Mahajan told the Assembly on Friday. A provision of ₹100 crore has been made in the State budget for the scheme.

“We are considering fixing the price of a packet of sanitary napkins at ₹1 for girl students. A final decision in this matter will be taken in a month,” Mr. Mahajan said, while responding to BJP legislator Namita Mundada during the question hour. He added that the government was also exploring how to expand the scheme to urban areas and ways to make sanitary napkins easily accessible.

The Asmita scheme to provide a packet of eight sanitary napkins at ₹5 to female students in rural areas, formulated when BJP leader Pankaja Munde helmed the Rural Development Ministry from 2014 to 2019, was discontinued last year as its tenure came to an end. Ms. Munde had requested the government to resume the scheme. Meanwhile, another BJP legislator, Bharati Lavekar, urged the Shinde-Fadnavis government to provide sanitary napkins free of cost and make them available at fair-price shops across the State.

“We demand the government bring back the Asmita Yojana, producing sanitary napkins by women’s groups providing hygiene and employment. As it was implemented after a study by women MLAs, I want to know what lacunae the government found in the old scheme,” Congress MLA Varsha Gaikwad said.

She said that the proposed scheme to provide sanitary napkins at ₹1 to school girls in rural areas was a good idea. It should be extended to low-income urban areas and napkin vending and disposal machines should be installed in public toilets in slums, she urged.

According to Mr. Mahajan, over 19 lakh school girls and 29 lakh women from self-help groups benefited from the scheme from 2018 to 2022.

Meanwhile, State Women and Child Development Minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha’s statement that there have been over one lakh ‘love jihad’ cases in Maharashtra sparked angry exchanges.