After free Wi-Fi in tribal areas of Chhattisgarh and Odisha, the East Coast Railway Women’s Welfare Organisation (ECoRWWO) has now provided sanitary napkin vending machine on an express train which is hugely popular and is a lifeline of thousands of passengers in tribal and interior areas of three States including Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
The ECoRWWO has provided on-board sanitary napkin vending machine in Bhubaneswar-Jagadalpur Hirakhand Express for the convenience of women passengers as part of promoting and securing women’s well-being and health. The Hirakhand Express became the first train in this region with such a machine.
ECoRWWO president Madhulika Singh inaugurated the machine in the train in presence of members of ECoRWWO and other officials. The slim and sleek vending machine dispenses the sanitary napkin by putting in a Rs5 coin. It has a capacity of 25 napkins. These will be refilled from time to time.
The train serves a huge tribal area and is a greatly popular connecting train for the Bhubaneswar and Koraput, Rayagada and Jagadalpur areas.
Earlier, such machines were installed by the ECoRWWO at Bhubaneswar, Puri, Sambalpur, Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram railway stations.