After a year of protests, petitions, and debates, sanitary napkins are finally exempt from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) launched in July 2017. Earlier, sanitary napkins were classified under luxury products making them taxable at a whopping 12 percent. This had caused uproar amongst activists and common people alike. According to an estimate, only one in five girls can afford the average of 8 to 12 pads an average woman needs each month. This causes many of them to stay from school and workplaces.

India is a country where there is already a stigma attached to the menstrual cycle, classifying a necessity like sanitary napkins as luxury and taxing them at 12 percent did not help to the women of the nation. In a welcome and much-awaited announcement interim finance minister, Piyush Goyal said “I am sure all mothers and sisters will be very happy to hear that sanitary pads are now 100 percent exempt from tax,”

This removes a huge barrier that blocked the path towards education for girls. Lack of access to clean hygiene products, the social stigma and lack of toilets in school are the main reasons that keep our daughters away from school. It was commendable that the government understood the seriousness of the situation and exempted a necessary female hygiene product from the GST.

“This was a most-awaited and necessary step to help girls and women to stay in school, their jobs, to practice proper menstrual hygiene,” said Surbhi Singh, founder of Sachhi Saheli. The average Indian girl or woman faces many challenges while menstruating due to a lack of awareness and the cost of pads. This means they use rags and hence stand a high risk of infection.

Although the lack of awareness and the stigma faced still remains to be a huge issue, removing the GST on pads will make them cheaper. We might not have reached the destination but we did take a step in the right direction.

Have something to say about exempting sanitary napkins from being taxable products? Let us know in the comments below.