MNS secretary Shalini Thackeray urges Centre to declare Indian sanitary napkins tax-free

New Delhi: The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) on Sunday urged the Centre to declare sanitary napkins manufactured by Indian companies a tax-free commodity.

A 12 percent tax is set to be levied on sanitary napkins under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, which is slated to come into play from 1 July.

MNS leader Shalini Thackeray met Union finance minister Arun Jaitley in New Delhi and urged him to do away with GST and other cesses with regard to the “environment-friendly” sanitary napkins.

The party said Jaitley had assured Thackeray that he would look into it.

“There is no point in creating awareness till the sanitary napkins are made affordable. If they are taxed under GST, it would amount to the women being taxed for a commodity they need desperately,” a statement quoted Thackeray as saying.

During the meeting with the finance minister, the MNS leader also submitted a charter of her party listing out all of its demands to ensure that the women got a reprieve from the “severe” tax pressure on sanitary napkins.

Thackeray, who was accompanied by MNS secretary Pramod Patil, requested Jaitley to bring the “environment-friendly” sanitary napkins under the Essential Commodities Act so that their price could be capped.

She also urged the finance minister to encourage the schools to install sanitary napkin vending machines.

In this regard, Thackeray said, the government could ask the global sanitary napkin manufacturers to install these machines and incinerators in educational institutes under their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.