Bhubaneswar, Dec 28: After the central government brought women to the centre of energy policy Ujjwala Yojana to provide clean cooking fuel to BPL households across the nation, the government has urged the industries across the nation to spend up to 10 percent of their profit on CSR in order to facilitate social and economic development of the country through Ujjwala Sanitary Napkin Initiative.
This core objective of the mission in Odisha is educating women on female hygiene and health, improve accessibility to low cost eco friendly sanitary pads and boosting rural employment and economy said SK Jha, GM, ICOL.
ICOL, BPCL, HPCL through this CSR initiative hope to realize this vision and strengthen the socio-economic status of women and help change the way rural Odisha perceives menstrual health, achieving the twin objective of improving women’s health and encouraging basic hygiene practices.
As per NFHS report overall use of sanitary napkins in Odisha is 33.5 percent. Only 42.8 percent of rural women between the age of 15-24 use proper hygienic methods of protection during menstruation. Under this initiative 100 local manufacturing units will be set up at Common Service Centres (CSC) across 30 districts, covering 93 blocks in Odisha. The cost of setting up these manufacturing units is Rs 2.94crores. Each facility will have the capacity to produce 1200-2000 pads each day and will have sterilization room to ensure that the napkins are sterilized before they are user ready. The CSCs are also being provided with raw materials, enough to make 45,000-50,000 pads. These napkins will be pieced at Rs 42 per pack containing 8 pads.
Talking to Orissa POST, state head of CSC, Swarnaprabha Singh said, “This is a business model and profit maximization is one of our core agenda for this project to be sustainable in nature. Each manufacturing unit will employ 5 to 6 Ujjwala beneficiaries thus providing employment to about 600 women across the state. By providing women training in manufacturing and sale of sanitary napkins, this initiative not only provides them with a dignified channel to earn but also equips them with entrepreneurial skills.”
PNN
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