Sanitary napkin vending machine inaugurated at government school

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, March 29

Taking a giant step towards encouraging personal hygiene among girls and also cut down on the hesitation that girls may feel while buying sanitary napkins from the market, Union Minister for Food Processing and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal inaugurated a newly-installed sanitary napkin vending machine at the Government Girls Senior Secondary School at Mall Road.

The minister said as a part of the initiative, 20 such machines would be installed at various educational institutes of the district.

She said the machines had been installed with the aim of promoting personal hygiene and usage of sanitary napkins. She said personal hygiene in females was the first step towards a healthy life. The vending machine gives three napkins when pressed once, for a just Rs 10.

Each machine costs around Rs 25,000 and Hindustan Lever Limited Company has installed them. She added that in order to dispose of the used sanitary napkins properly, incinerators had also been installed in girls’ toilets wherein the girls can throw away used napkins. The incinerator burns away these napkins.

She said girls were hesitant while buying sanitary napkins from shops. These machines would help by providing them sanitary napkins right in their educational institutions without any hesitation. She added that similar machines were being installed at Government Senior Secondary Schools (girls) at Balianwali, Goniana, Koreana, Maluka, Maur Mandi, Patti Karam Chand Mehraj, Rama Mandi, Rampura Mandi, and Talwandi Sabo.

CPS Sarup Chand Singla, Deputy Commissioner Basant Garg, OSD to Deputy CM Mohnish Kumar and Harinder Singh Sra, ADC (D) Shena Aggarwal, SSP Swapan Sharma, DEO (S) Dr Amarjit Kaur Kotfatta among others were also present on the occasion.