Price factor makes napkin project a failure

The project initiated by the State Government to provide sanitary napkin-making tools to the village women in four districts of the State by way of empowering them economically as well as creating awareness among them about hygiene norms has been facing problem as the price of the napkins being made manually in the villages is nearly the same as those available in the market.

Four districts where the project was initiated are Bageshwar, Udham Singh Nagar, Nainital and Tehri. It is learnt that the manually made sanitary napkin costs Rs 3.50 which is equal to the market rate of the same. As per the officials dealing with the project, they are set to buy sanitary napkins from Government e-market (GEM) which costs Rs  1.80 per napkin and costs Rs  13.80 per packet which contains eight napkins, the rate being much lower  than the rate of manually made napkins, the project is now losing its steam.

Speaking of the matter, the State project officer of the women empowerment and child development department, Arti Balodi said, “The raw materials used to make such napkins are transported mainly from Delhi and Mumbai. This escalates the price as the transportation cost is high.  The matter is that the women engaged in making such napkins are not reaping profit out of the venture as their price is not competitive.

However, there is one positive aspect. The women while selling these napkins in the four districts are making others they approach aware of the hygiene norms.

They are reaching them to local anganwadi centres and also to those who have little connection with the markets. Now, the women living in these areas are not hesitating to buy sanitary napkins.”

She further said, “For other districts, we are now buying the napkins packets from GEM which are lower in rates than the available branded napkins. These will be distributed in all the anganwadi centres of the left–out districts.”