East Coast Railway To Install Sanitary Napkin Vending Machines In Trains

Bhubaneswar: East Coast Railway (ECoR) will install automatic sanitary napkin vending machines in all important trains originating from its jurisdiction, a Railways official said Tuesday. ECoR will start installing the sanitary napkin vending machines in 90 compartments of 63 trains from Gandhi Jayanti today, he said. The price of a sanitary napkin would be Rs 5 and passengers can get them by inserting a Rs 5 coin in the vending machines. The machines can vend 75 pads at a time, the official said. The decision was taken after successful acceptance and response from women passengers following installation of vending machines in Bhubaneswar-Jagadalpur Hirakhand Express and keeping in view the demand from the passengers, he said.

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The step is a part of the ECoRs drive to improve sanitation and hygiene, the official said the facility has already been extended to Bhubaneswar-Bangalore Prashanti Express. It will also be a step towards promoting ‘Swachh Rail Swachh Bharat’ mission, the official said. ECoR is the first railway zone in Indian Railways to undertake such an extensive exercise. It has already installed this facility in major railway stations under its jurisdiction.

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East Coast Railway Womens Welfare Organisation (ECoRWWO) took the initiative to provide sanitary napkin vending machines to 25 important mail and express trains originating in the ECoR jurisdiction. The machines installed in the railway stations are also being sponsored by ECoRWWO. The 25 trains where the vending machines include the three Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani Express trains, Puri-New Delhi Purusottam Express, Puri-Anand Vihar NandankananExpress, Puri-Anand Vihar Neelachal Express, Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Odisha Sampark Kranti Express, Bhubaneswar-LTT bi-weekly Express, and Visakhapatnam-New Delhi AP AC Express trains, he added.

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NDTV – Dettol Banega Swachh India campaign lends support to the Government of India’s Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). Helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan, the campaign aims to spread awareness about hygiene and sanitation, the importance of building toilets and making India open defecation free (ODF) by October 2019, a target set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when he launched Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in 2014. Over the years, the campaign has widened its scope to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and menstrual hygiene. The campaign has also focused extensively on marine pollution, clean Ganga Project and rejuvenation of Yamuna, two of India’s major river bodies.