In a bid to promote menstrual hygiene and reduce the dropout rate of female students, the Punjab government on Saturday granted Rs 10 crores for providing free sanitary napkins to all girls from Class 6 to 12 in government schools.n a bid to promote menstrual hygiene and reduce the dropout rate of female students, the Punjab government on Saturday granted Rs 10 crores for providing free sanitary napkins to all girls from Class 6 to 12 in government schools.

EARLIER BUDGET ALLOCATIONS FOR SANITARY NAPKINS

This is not the first time that Punjab government has talked about menstruation and sanitary pads in its budget. The first budgetary allocation for sanitary napkins was made in 2016-17 when former finance minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa under SAD-BJP government announced ‘Swastha Kanya Yojna’ and granted Rs 24 crore to provide sanitary kits to girls. But, the scheme never took off due to ‘financial constraints’.

Ravi Bhagat, currently the chief administrator of Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA), former Ludhiana Deputy Commissioner, was the one who had taken an initiative and written a letter to former Education Minister Daljeet Singh Cheema, demanding that sanitary napkins be provided free-of-cost to girls in government schools as they do not have access to them due to financial constraints which is leading to dropouts in schools.

Bhagat then entered into a tie-up with a firm and got sanitary napkin vending machines installed in 39 government schools in Ludhiana. The machines dispensed napkins at Rs 2 each .

He told the Indian Express that he had written to the former education minister in order to get these machines installed in the schools of Punjab.

However, machine was costing around Rs 23,000 each and had to be refilled at own expense. So the government found it to be a costly affair

Then it was proposed that girls will be given napkins free of cost by government and sanitary kits were proposed. The scheme, as per my knowledge, never took off,” he said, according to The Indian Express.

Bhagat said that he now hopes for practical implementation of the project. “I do not know why it did not take off earlier despite a budget being allocated for it, but at least now it should.”