Jharkhand to distribute sanitary napkins to school girls
The Sakhi scheme aims to check absenteeism of girls in schools
Chief minister Raghubar Das on Monday launched a scheme for the distribution of sanitary napkins among girls studying in government schools. Under the scheme, girls of classes 6-12 will receive free sanitary napkins every month.
Health minister Ramchandra Chandravanshi called the Sakhi scheme as “progressive” and said it will help improve the personal hygiene among girls who cannot afford to buy sanitary napkins and will help them in preventing infections.
These sanitary napkins will be supplied directly to the community health centres in different districts. From there, the medical officer in-charge will send them to schools, where teachers will distribute them among girls.
“This is an important scheme for teenage girls, as it is noticed that many girls drop out of school after they reach puberty. They may also become irregular (with their attendance) during their their menstrual cycle. This scheme will help check absenteeism of girls from schools,” health secretary K Vidyasagar said.
Launching a number of health-related schemes in the Namkum locality of Ranchi on Monday, Das appealed to doctors to voluntarily dedicate one day in a month towards the check-up of poor pregnant women in order to reduce maternal and infant mortality rates in Jharkhand.
“The government is working towards ensuring that pregnant women in Jharkhand should not be malnourished. These women bear the future of the state, they should have access to nutritious food,” He said adding that sahiyas and aanganwadi workers have added responsibility towards this.
Additionally, the state will set up the eight dialysis units in Chaibasa, Bokaro, Dhanbad, Dumka, Gumla, Hazaribagh, Jamshedpur and Palamu districts. These units — consisting of five machines each — will be started under the public private partnership (PPP) mode to provide quality services to people suffering from renal problems at nominal costs and free for BPL families.
During the programme, 145 specialist doctors and 1,600 male multi-purpose workers were given appointment letters.
The chief minister also distributed 33 ambulances to five model health centres and 46 to community health centres.