The first low cost sanitary pad manufacturing unit was established in the East Champaran district of Bihar state (in India) in 2019. The unit was set up in the Nayagaon revenue village in the Kesaria block. The Kesaria block is a rural and agricultural administrative unit in the flood plains, and is situated in north-west Bihar, along the river Gandak. It is at a distance of around 120 km form Patna, the capital city of Bihar. It was part of the ancient Buddhist world and Lord Buddha is said to have travelled along the river Gandak on many of his historical journeys. A huge ancient hillock/mound in Kesaria was excavated a few years ago by Archaeological Survey of India and this is now known as Kesaria Stupa – perhaps the tallest Buddhist Stupa in the world, dating from 1-3 century AD. The unit is located five kilometres away from Kesaria proper, in the village Nayagaon. Nayagaon and Kesaria both are situated along the state highway 74.
After few months of operation, an additional part-unit was added to this Nayagaon manufacturing unit, which has made possible to produce regular sized pads using a three-header semi-automatic machine.
After more than a year of operation, a separate second production unit has been added to the Nayagaon unit. A new separate semi-automatic manufacturing plant was set up in the same premises, thereby increasing the scale and production capacity of the Nayagaon unit
The response of and learning from Nayagaon project has been quite encouraging. This has prompted the Foundation to plan for opening further units in rural areas of Bihar. It has also encouraged the Foundation to think about starting another fully independent unit in another state, Jharkhand. This, being a tribal state with its own unique demographic, social and development challenges, required a fresh approach and planning and working from scratch. This new unit is being set up in rural area, around 20 km from capital city, Ranchi. It is expected to start operation from last month of 2020.
The Foundation plans to have many more decentralized units in different parts of Bihar and Jharkhand in future. We plan and hope to start three to five more units during 2021, though it will also depend on availably of fund and extent of donation received from various sources for meeting the capital requirements. The choice of location will largely be determined on the basis of availability of motivated and interested women and men who would take up the responsibility of day to day running of these units. As of now, the potential locations seem to be the following:
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