NEW DELHI: In a move to ensure better living conditions for women personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the government has sanctioned ‘gender-sensitive’ funds to the country’s largest paramilitary force to procure and install over 500 sanitary pad dispensers and incinerators for the women personnel in combat.
Funds have been sanctioned to procure a total of 288 pad vending machines and the same number of incinerators to scientifically dispose used sanitary napkins, officials said.
The CRPF has also been authorised to purchase 783 steel frame stands for drying clothes for all its six ‘mahila’ (women) battalions, 15 special anti-riot units of the Rapid Action Force and training institutions.
The sanctioned funds, which were authorised by the Union Home Ministry, stands at Rs 2,10,69, 000. The cost of one sanitary pad vending machine is estimated to be about Rs 25,000, a burning machine about Rs 40,000 and a cloth drying stand Rs 3,000, as per a ministry order.
The order states that the expenditure will be met from the “approved budget grant” of the paramilitary force.
“The sanction will help the force in ensuring better living and operating conditions for the over 8,000 women personnel who are in combat. The women troops are deployed across the country for rendering law and order duties, anti-Naxal operations and other operational task,” said CRPF spokesperson Deputy Inspector General Moses Dhinakaran.