'Educate girls on menstrual hygiene and sexual anatomy'

CHENNAI: At a village in Dantewada, a naxal-affected district in Chhatisgarh, Arunachalam Muruganantham, inventor of a machine that makes low-cost sanitary pads, was talking to some villagers after a training session. Suddenly, the villagers started running towards a house nearby. A teenage girl had committed suicide. She was in a relationship with a boy, and her period was late that month.Fearing she was pregnant, she took the extreme step.
Autopsy revealed she was not pregnant, but anaemic. "A 10-rupee pregnancy test could have saved her. But awareness levels are still so low in rural areas," he said.
Muruganantham is in Chennai as a guest speaker at a Fortune 500 companies meet here.
More than 1,300 machines made by his company, Jayaashree Industries, are installed across 27 states in India and seven other countries. Referring to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s pet project of making UP a 100% sanitary-napkin using state, Muruganantham told TOI that he has helped set up napkin manufacturing units across UP. “We have provided employment for hundreds of rural women as they manufacture and sell the napkins,” he said.
In Tamil Nadu, he has set up nearly 100 units in Dharmapuri, Salem, Krishnagiri and other districts. Each unit, which functions as a manufacturing set up as well as training centre, employs ten women and can produce around 30,000 low-cost napkins a month.
Under a Tamil Nadu government scheme, sanitary napkins are distributed free of cost to girls in rural areas, new mothers and girls studying in government schools. NGO volunteers also visit villages to create awareness on menstrual hygiene.
Muruganantham felt that while it is important for governments to implement schemes to increase use of sanitary pads, girls also have to be educated on sexual anatomy.
“Many are not aware of their own bodies and the menstrual cycle. Menstrual hygiene and awareness is as important as education to improve status of girl child in India,” he said.
He pointed out that even now, a majority of girls in rural TN miss six days of school a month. “Providing sanitary pads and increasing awareness will help them stay in school and take up good jobs later,” he said.