Pad Woman-daughter of a PSPCL engineer illuminated the life of 12.5 lakhs poor in Covid
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in/ Chandigarh
Aman Preet pride daughter of Punjab played a key role for the women and girls of poor families for providing sanitary napkin pads to 12.5 lakhs to 17 states across the nation during Covid 19 Pandemic.
Aman Preet IRS Joint Commissioner Income Tax Delhi – PAD WOMAN or should we say the one who is creating hundreds of Pad women and Pad Men across India since the Lockdown began !!Amidst COVID-19 when many social organizations , NGO’s ,individuals stood up to help the needy and vulnerable sections of society with food, clothes, sanitisers ,face masks etc etc this woman ,going beyond her call of duty reached out to the women across country to help them with their menstrual needs. She made the people realise that Pads are also as essential as food and masks as *“PERIODS DON’T STOP IN PANDEMIC!”*#*
The pandemic and the lockdown has impacted the women in worst manner ,women who already belonged to the vulnerable strata of society started struggling for thier basic menstrual needs.Aman Preet told that her own househelp who used to come from the neighbouring slum in Noida told her that she was struggling to get the sanitary pads and so she has resorted back to using old ways of using cloth . This triggered her wish to reach out to the women in need across the country.
With the help of her vast network of batchmates ,friends , seniors and many local NGO’s *#*she has distributed more than12.5 lakh pads in 17 states of India.*# Her team includes people from all walks of life be her driver , *#*Noor who was with her distributing pads even during his Ramzan fasts, green group women of Uttar Pradesh, Blogger from Prayagraaj ,fisherwomen from Sundarban (Bengal) , hindi writer from Allahabad ,Unani doctors of Punjab ,housewives of Surat, Gurudwara granthis of Sangrur , an Urdu teacher from Jammu, Para athlete from Pondicherry , Olympics judo player from Meerut ,Shooter dadi’s from Baghpat ,*# several college going girls and boys across country who reach out to her for help by any means , to many social organisations , foundations ,Trusts, Civil Servants who have volunteered to create awareness on the topic which is still hushed upon by the significant section of our society. Her whole family has stood beside her while seeing her passion to reach out to the underprivileged sections and *#*her husband Sh. Dikshit Passy who is a businessman has*# accompanied her in every distribution and has contributed monetarily.Her father *#*Er.Rachhpal Singh who is a Retd.Engineer in Chief from Punjab Statr Power Corporation Limited and her mother Dr.Neeru,AMO*#* have taken the reins of her mission in Punjab and has organised many camps in Punjab and distributed around 20,000 pads in Ludhiana alone.They told that now women from surrounding slums have started coming to their house themselves to take free supply of sanitary pads .
She has made men and women talk about importance of menstrual hygiene along with personal hygiene during COVID-19 and *#*has reached to around 12.5 lakh women in the remotest of remotest areas of country*#* and *#*50% of these women will use pads for the first time*#. Narrating to us , She told about the stories of people refusing to distribute saying,”yeh gandi cheez hum nahin baant sakte”, to people even refusing to take ration if sanitary napkins were given along with it.Women saying that they need to take permission from her husbands and in laws to buy this,some women taking the supplies for their daughters and telling “didi yeh mehngi cheez hai ,bachi use kar legi,mere liye kapda hi theek hai” and telling horrendous stories of how they were using the discarded clothes of house to stop the menstrual blood to spill over .In Bengal the women told that their every little thing was washed away in Amphan and not even a single piece of dry cloth was there with them to use to make even a cloth pad. Many girls told that as now their parents have become jobless as they were daily wagers and now they have no means to buy pads .
Aman Preet said that ”Shutting down of schools and colleges have stopped the free supply of the period products across nation and most females in various parts of our country do not feel comfortable even talking to their mothers about periods. And existence of taboos related to periods makes impossible for them to even go out and buy themselves. With no supplies reaching them many of them have resorted back to use age old methods which have affected their mental and physical health adversary .These girls used to bring supplies for the other women in their house also and for friends who don’t have access even to these schools and colleges .” In Punjab and Hyderabad ,with the help of aganwadi workers the supplies were sent to many such girls and women . Several shelter homes ,prisons across country ,mahila thanas ,ashrams ,observatory homes, kusht ashrams ,homes for specially abled women and girls have been sent supplies of sanitary napkins .Recently with the help of one such *#*social organisation “Sangini Saheli”*#* which again is by her fashion designer friend Priyal Bhardwaj based in Delhi she has joined hands with world’s largest COVID Care facility in Delhi,Chattarpur to provide the supply of pads to women patients there till the last Covid Patient recovers.
Now popularly known as “didi” by all ,she receives messages from across India to cater to the supply of Sanitary Napkins for which she seems to be on mission mode to end Period Poverty and make the accessibility of menstrual products to the underprivileged women in a dignified way.Salute to such officers who have gone beyond their call of duties to help the fellow citizens of the country to fight Covid .
*#*Born and brought up in Ludhiana, a Post Graduate from Panjab University,an Officer of 2010 Batch of IRS and now our COVID WARRIOR !*#*
September,6,2020
