COIMBATORE: It was his creativity in designing a low-cost sanitary napkin making machine that fetched him the coveted ‘National Innovation Foundation Award’.
When A Muruganantham received the award from President Prathiba Patil at a gala function in New Delhi on November 18, he had come a long way from the time when he was forced to discontinue his education after SSLC to shoulder the responsibility of his family after his father, a handloom weaver, died in a road accident. He was then just 15. By toiling as a helper at a welding workshop, he learnt the nuances of the trade and later started a workshop of his own near Kanuvai on the outskirts of the city.
When exactly did he conceive the idea of designing a sanitary napkin making machine? “It was after my marriage in 1998 when I found my wife using a cloth dirtier than the waste used at workshops during her periods. Since the branded napkins of two multi-national companies were so costly, I conducted extensive research on an indigenous machine for making sanitary napkins,” he reveals.
His four-year study culminated in the creation of a low-cost machine. Initially, he gave the sanitary napkins manufactured on that to a few students of a local college but they did not give him their feedback. Dejected, he dumped the products at his house and started to concentrate on his workshop. However, his wife without telling him cleared the stock. She sold it to womenfolk around their house on instalment basis. “The success of that experiment inspired me to re-start work on making the machines. My semi-automatic machine needs just single phase power and is priced at Rs 65,000 whereas the machines manufactured by MNCs costs around Rs 3.50 crore. Over 100 machines have been delivered which are now functioning in 14 States,” he says with obvious pride.
The machines are given away to the womenfolk or SHGs only after an initial training. Even the imported raw material (wood fibre) for sanitary napkins is supplied to them. The rural women including tribals are now earning an income ranging anywhere between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000.
Muruganantham has obtained a patent for his innovation but he does not want to make it a commercial affair. Though Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda have asked for the machines, only the technology would be passed on to them and not the machines, he said.