Chennai: To ensure seamless accessibility to sanitary napkins for all those in need, Madras high court directed state govt to endeavour to increase the number of cooperative society shops that sell sanitary napkins at subsidised rates as much as possible, at least equal to ration shops in the state.The first bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava (since retired) and Justice G Arul Murugan passed the order on a public interest writ petition moved by Lakshmi Raja, seeking direction to state govt to include sanitary napkins at a subsidised cost or free of cost under the public distribution system (PDS) at all ration shops.When the plea came up for hearing on March 5, advocate-general P S Raman submitted that there are 1,000 ‘Mudhalvar Marundhagam’ shops run by the cooperative societies under the control of the registrar of cooperative societies, where napkins are being sold at subsidised rates.“The scheme aims at opening owned and rented shops in locations which are easily accessible. Even though the sale of napkins is not available at ration shops, such a facility is available in the society shops, which are 1,000s in number, in addition to 248 cooperative medical shops and 132 medical shops,” he said.The scheme did not come to an end and, in times to come, the society shops will be expanded to make the availability of napkins more accessible than what is now available, he added.The petitioner submitted that if the points of sale are increased to almost equal the number of ration shops, easy availability would be ensured to a greater extent. Recording the submissions, the bench adjourned the hearing to April 29 and observed that it hoped and trusted that the state would come out with more cooperative shops to ensure easy availability of napkins.
