india

Updated: Aug 23, 2014 16:03 IST

An Indian, who has invented a machine that can be used to make cheap sanitary pads, hopes that the device would be available in 70 developing countries by next year.

"We will make the machine available in 70 developing countries next year," said Coimbatore-based Arunachalam Muruganantham.

"The machine is getting popular in the developing countries," Muruganantham, a school dropout said. It is now being used in 17 developing countries including African states, for making sanitary napkins for women.

Muruganantham took seven-and-a-half years to develop the invention, a weaving machine made of wood and sold it at Rs. 1 lakh through his non-government organisation, Jayaashree Industries. "My goal is to get all the women in India, who are still not using hygienic sanitary napkins, to use it," he said.



"All these women are still using old grandmother methods of managing their monthly period, which is dangerous to their health," said Muruganantham.

"Some of these women are using saw dust and tree leaves," said Muruganantham, after addressing the IIMPACT 2014 conference, one of his speaking assignments internationally of teaching women in developing countries of hygienic methods.

"In my company we don't have marketing department," he told applauding delegates including corporate heads.

"This is called beyond marketing," he said referring to his model of promoting the use of the machine and related promotion of the use of the sanitary napkin. He hopes to generate employment for 1 million poor women in India, getting them to make sanitary napkins using the machines.

Muruganantham was a guest speaker at IIMPACT 2014, an annual conference organised by alumni of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and attended by 1,100 delegates from across the globe.