State focuses on women's hygiene in rural areas

PUNE: In order to promote good sanitation practices amongst women in rural areas, the state sanitation department has come up with a novel idea which can help in improving personal hygiene of women and at the same time help Self Help Groups (SHGs) earn profits out of the same.
The department with the help of World Bank has helped set up low-cost sanitary napkin manufacturing units in 10 districts of Maharashtra, which are run by SHGs.The activity is being extended across the state and one of the units is coming up in Pirangut near Pune.
While the SHGs are raising funds on their own, the soft components such as training, capacity building, backward and forward linkages, raw material procurement and market linkage is being provided by the department.
Gender specialist, government of Maharashtra, Mahadeo Jogdand, who has conducted detailed studies about running of such units said that it all began with Jalswarajya project implemented by the state in 3,017 villages of 26 districts.
"There was a special sub-component for women empowerment in the project. This led to the idea of setting up such units because women and girls from rural areas do not have easy access to sanitary napkins nor can they afford the ones available in the market," Jogdand said.
He pointed out that technical guidance was given by an NGO, Women from Tamilnadu, which is working in the same field - following which nine units were started in seven districts.
"It wasn't an easy task for women to get started with this activity as they faced different problems such as opposition from family, difficulty in arranging finances, electricity availability in villages and procurement of raw-material. But, the women were determined and the brand name 'Nirmal' was registered," Jogdand said.
He claims that this is the first such initiative in Maharashtra and the experiment has ensured affordability and accessibility of sanitary napkins in the most interior areas.
"We went through a long process - right from seeking information about quality raw material to creating awareness in villages about the product. The groups sell a napkin at a price of Rs 2 as against products from popular brands whose retail price is Rs 5-6 per napkin. The initiative has ensured affordability and the response has been encouraging. An assessment was done with the help of UNICEF in 20 villages which showed that the use of napkins has risen to nearly 50 per cent since the initiative," Jogdand said.
He, however, pointed out that the groups need support from government for procurement of raw material at subsidised rates, which will help in increase profits. Currently the groups earn Rs 10-12,000 per month as profit.
The department has now planned to establish link between primary health centre and, National Rural Health Mission and manufacturing units to ensure that the units get regular purchase order.