MP Sushmita Dev’s petition to reduce tax on sanitary napkins garners more than 2 lakh signatures

The petition is addressed to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

sushmita dev, sanitary napkin petition, tax free sanitary napkins, sanitary napkins women, rahul gandhi, varun gandhi, arun jaitley, GST, india news

A sanitary napkin vending machine. (Representational)

Member of Parliament Sushmita Dev’s petition to remove tax on sanitary napkins has crossed two lakh signatures on Change.org. The MP petitioned to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Minister for Health & Family Welfare JP Nadda and Union Minister For Women & Child Development Maneka Gandhi to make sanitary napkins tax free as they are not luxury products. She had earlier in February written to Jaitley and started the petition on March 8, International Women’s Day. The signature received more than two lakh signatures in two weeks.

The petition also calls for completely tax-free biodegradable and reusable napkins and minimally taxed non-biodegradable sanitary napkins, due to the environmental harm that they cause.

Her petition has received support not just from the people but also from various parliamentarians, including Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and BJP MP Varun Gandhi. Other leaders too have extended support to the petition, urging to remove tax on sanitary napkins.

Take a step to change the lives of millions of women this #WomensDay .I signed this petition,so shld you,because Indian women deserve better https://t.co/Uwo8fGmrPe

— Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) March 8, 2017

Noble initiative, should draw bipartisan support. https://t.co/WCHSQUhXAG

— Varun Gandhi (@varungandhi80) March 9, 2017

MP @sushmitadevmp‘s campaign to make #sanitarypads tax free under #GST like contraceptives already are. Plz support🙏https://t.co/OvvhbGsNKG

— Baijayant Jay Panda (@PandaJay) March 17, 2017

Let us appeal government of India @mygovindia to reduce/abolish the tax on Sanitary Napkins !https://t.co/BCtMnf4CRZ

— Supriya Sule (@supriya_sule) March 19, 2017

I extend my support to this excellent initiative by my fellow Member in Parliament from Assam @sushmitadevmp https://t.co/3fEnOWaQRj

— Kavitha Kalvakuntla (@RaoKavitha) March 19, 2017

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Other Congress politicians like Salman Khurshid, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajiv Satav, Partap Singh Bajwa and Ninong Ering have also supported Sushmita Dev’s petition.

In her petition, Dev says that these sanitary napkins, if affordable, will be used by more girls, thus contributing to attendance in schools. Currently, only 12% of 355 million girls in the country use sanitary napkins, according to Dev.

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