A national survey report released earlier this year said around 60 percent of young women in India aged between 16 and 24 years did not have access to sanitary pads (AFP Photo/INDRANIL MUKHERJEE) |
India has
withdrawn a controversial tax on sanitary pads following a vocal campaign led
by activists and Bollywood stars to boost female education and empowerment.
Saturday's
announcement is part of a slew of changes to the national goods and services
tax (GST) intended to reduce the prices of around 90 key consumer goods, many
of which target urban middle classes ahead of next year's general election.
"I
think all women will be happy to know that sanitary pads will now have 100
percent exemption. There will be no GST on sanitary pads," India's acting
finance minister Piyush Goyal told journalists on Saturday.
Activists,
Bollywood actors and some politicians had opposed the 12 percent tax, citing a
lack of access and affordability for a key hygiene product as a key barrier to
female empowerment in the country.
A national
survey report released earlier this year said around 60 percent of young women
aged between 16 and 24 years did not have access to sanitary pads.
The figure
was as high as 80 percent for some of India's poorer central and eastern
states.
Reports in
the last few years have linked absence of basic infrastructure such as toilets
at Indian government schools outside big urban centres, and lack of access to
sanitary pads, with higher dropout rates among girls.
"One
of those days when a news brings tears of joy as a cause close to ur heart gets
fulfilled," Akshay Kumar, one of Bollywood's most popular stars, wrote on
Twitter.
Kumar was
the lead actor in Padman, a Bollywood movie released earlier this year about
the life of an activist who created a line of low-cost sanitary napkins for
rural India.
"Thank
you ... for understanding the need for menstrual hygiene and exempting sanitary
pads from tax. I'm sure crores (tens of millions) of women in our country are
silently sending gratitude ur way," he added.
The new
national GST (goods and services tax) was introduced last July under Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, and was the country's biggest tax overhaul in a
generation.
It was
meant to unify the over $2 trillion economy into a single market, with four tax
rates of 5, 12, 18 and 28 percent.
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