The 19-year-old Patna resident who questioned the executive director of Bihar’s Women Development Corporation (WDC) about why the government couldn’t provide sanitary napkins at schools claimed it was a ‘major issue of school-going girls’. She explained that the reason she posed the issue was because she and several of her friends had never been able to save up money to purchase sanitary pads. She wanted to propose that every school install sanitary pad boxes so that girls can access the item whenever they need it.
The WDC Chairman-Current Managing Director Harjot Kaur Bamhrah had this to say in answer to Riya Kumari’s query at a workshop on the topic of women’s empowerment, organised by the WDC and UNICEF: ‘The issue is about whether the government can distribute sanitary pads. Finally, when it comes to family planning, there may be requests for free contraception. Other requests can be for pants and nice shoes for tomorrow’.
The IAS officer offered a written apology after receiving widespread criticism for the response. Bamhrah included a list of the state government’s actions in the statement that contained the apologies for girls. In her statement, she stated that this included ‘providing Rs 300 to each lady student (from Class 6 and above) monthly to buy sanitary pads’.
‘Since I and a few of my friends never had money to buy sanitary pads, I asked questions about sanitary pads. To prevent girls from feeling embarrassed, I wanted to recommend placing sanitary pad boxes at every school’, she stated. ‘ The WDC CMD was not pleased when several people applauded when I asked about sanitary pads. When it came to girls who were in school, I had raised some major concerns’, Riya stated. She is the only member of her family to have completed Class 10 and lives in a slum in Patna, right behind the BJP and RJD offices. Her labourer father passed away from illness last year.
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